


From the Ashes

by PenguinofProse



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anomaly speculation, Becho Breakup, Echo ships Bellarke, Friends to Lovers, I've lost count of how many apocalypses this is now, More Fluff, Multi, Pro-Echo propaganda campaign, Roommates to lovers, Some angst, everyone gets a happy ending, season 7 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23637244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: Season seven speculation, picking up right where season six left off. The anomaly, the end of the world - again - and some much-needed character development. Spy mechanic with minor Bellarke. Echo-centric.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Echo, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Echo & Clarke Griffin, Echo/Raven Reyes
Comments: 60
Kudos: 181





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> If you've ever read my writing before, it won't be news to you that I think Echo is the most underrated character in the 100. I'm really excited about this story - I know it won't get as many readers as some of my others because it is Echo-centric, but I'm looking forward to writing a multi-chapter project from her point of view all the same. You can look forward to plenty of Bellarke, a healthy dose of Spy Mechanic, and some completely unrealistic but enjoyable season seven speculation.
> 
> Huge thanks to Stomrkpr, who didn't used to be an Echo fan but admits to actually feeling affinity for her on betaing this chapter!
> 
> Happy reading!

_Rise above it._

That's pretty much been Echo's motto since they landed back on Earth and learnt that Clarke was still alive.

 _Rise above it_.

She mustn't let her gaze linger on the fond farewell between Bellamy and Clarke before he sets out for the anomaly with Octavia. No good will come from staring at them, and the only solution is to let it go.

 _Rise above it_.

She can't allow herself to care too deeply that he's falling in love with Clarke all over again – or that, perhaps, he never stopped loving Clarke. She knows where this is going, has been able to see the writing on the wall ever since Madi pulled the rug out from under all their feet. She just needs to bide her time, and choose the perfect moment to set things to rights.

And in the meantime, she needs to keep her head held high. There's no point letting this get to her – Bellamy will love who Bellamy loves. That's not a thing anyone gets to _choose_ , Echo's pretty sure. If free will was involved, she sure as hell wouldn't have chosen to go and fall in love with a guy who was still stuck on a woman they all thought was dead.

They've finished hugging, now, but Echo represses the urge to make a biting comment along the lines of _took you long enough_. Bellamy and Clarke just got each other back, really, and it's only natural that they should take their time saying goodbye. She will rise above her jealousy at their obvious intimacy, and she will get on with being the most loyal member of Bellamy's family.

"She could come with us, you know." Echo offers as they leave, because it needs to be said, and because she reckons that suggesting Clarke join them as an _addition_ to the group is a less controversial suggestion than coming out and saying that it should be Clarke by Bellamy's side _instead_ of her.

"She can't. She has Madi." Bellamy says shortly, and that is all the confirmation Echo needed – confirmation that he loves Clarke, confirmation that Clarke would be his companion of choice were it not for the lack of suitable childcare arrangements. And it hurts, sure, because she is in fact in love with this man herself – but it hurts with a dull throb rather than a sharp stab. It hurts like an old injury she's known about for a while, one she can sometimes even forget is there. And anyway, she's going to rise above it. She's had plenty of practise at ignoring pain before now.

They join up with Octavia and Gabriel then, and Bellamy makes a game attempt to engage his sister in conversation. Echo is proud of him, really she is – it hasn't been easy for him to forgive _the Queen of Cannibals_ , as he was referring to her just a few short days ago, so she reckons it's only good news that they're trying for a chat about nothing in particular as they walk towards the anomaly.

"Something on your mind?" Gabriel asks, catching her by surprise. Echo wasn't aware that there was anyone here who bothered talking to her much, apart from Bellamy and the rest of Spacekru.

"Just glad to see them talking again." She says, with a gesture at the siblings.

"Reunions and reconciliation all round." Gabriel says, agreement in his tone. "It must have been hard for Bellamy to leave Clarke behind so soon after getting her back from Josephine."

Echo doesn't answer that. She can't. She's a bit too busy, rising above it for all she is worth.

…...

She's not surprised when Octavia disappears in a puff of green smoke.

She's not surprised, because she already figured all those symbols had to mean something. There was obviously something mysterious afoot, and now she comes to think about it, she's not sure rushing out here to investigate was a particularly good idea.

Most of all, she's not surprised because she's pretty damn difficult to take by surprise. Expecting things to go wrong is basically her default state, these days, and she likes to think that being level-headed in a crisis is one of her better qualities.

Unsurprised though she may be, she does wonder what's going on. Of course she does – she's as vulnerable to human curiosity as the next woman, for all that she's heard people accuse her of being somewhat inhuman in the past. This vanishing act is like nothing she's ever seen before – she'd be tempted to call it almost _magical_ , but she distinctly remembers a conversation with Raven, early on in their time on the Ring, where she was feeling completely bamboozled by all the new tech and Raven had shared with her some profound quote about advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.

In the time it takes her to scour the dust at her feet with a frown on her face and start questioning what has happened, Bellamy manages to make a run for it, sprinting out into the forest for no apparent reason.

She wishes he'd stop and take a breath, sometimes, before acting. It's exhausting, following helplessly in the wake of his impulsive decisions. Being helpless doesn't really suit her, she's pretty sure. And she's no Clarke, so she hasn't a hope of actually getting him to change his behaviour.

Swallowing her frustration, she follows him into the trees. Gabriel joins her, too, muttering something about how Bellamy seems to be heading for the anomaly, and that confuses her. She thought they'd already summoned the anomaly – wasn't that what all that green mist was about?

Clearly, understanding the intricacies of temporal anomalies is not her strong suit.

It doesn't take them long to catch up to Bellamy. He's still limping slightly from that encounter with the blade of Clarke's knife during the red sun psychosis, but she's pretty sure that's not all that's going on here. He seems to be slowing down, as he nears the anomaly, staggering slightly for reasons that remain unclear to her. And then he stops altogether, just as they are a handful of paces away, and reaches out to stroke thin air with a tentative fingertip.

She's seen Bellamy behave pretty damn weirdly, over the last thirteen decades. She can remember, for example, one morning in space when she woke up to the sight of him sleeping on a rough-bristled doormat on the floor so he'd feel _more on Earth_.

But she's never seen him stroke thin air.

Then she hears him speak, and it all makes sense. It makes _perfect_ sense, because as he steps forward and wraps his arms around nothingness he's whispering one word, over and over and over again, prayer and mourning chant rolled into one.

You know what he's whispering, don't you? He's whispering _Clarke_.

Echo hears Gabriel clear his throat noisily, but she wants to tell him not to bother. It is not news to her that her boyfriend is obsessed with Clarke Griffin. She'd be a pretty hopeless spy if she hadn't the observational skills to have noticed that, by now.

"The anomaly shows people their deepest desires and greatest fears." Gabriel reminds her unnecessarily.

"I know." She agrees, a little affronted. "And we both know which of those two things describes the way Bellamy feels about Clarke. Now let's get him out of there before he follows some illusion of her into that anomaly and we lose him too."

She can see why people might think she's heartless, as she reflects on those words. It takes a pretty exceptional talent to compartmentalise to that degree – yeah, sure, her boyfriend is currently living out some fantasy happily-ever-after with another woman before her very eyes, but she needs to get him to safety before she allows herself to fall apart over it.

She's not sure whether she will fall apart over it, actually. She's already cried about Bellamy's obvious preference for Clarke, a time or two or three, when she had the privacy to be able to do so without rousing Bellamy's suspicions. She thought she was all cried out, but as she watches him, now, smiling fondly and evidently holding onto a hand only he can see as he follows his hallucination towards the unknown, she begins to wonder if there might be more tears to come.

She's just never had to watch him be quite this obvious about it before. Leaving her to save Clarke's life without looking back was a bit of a giveaway, but this is something else entirely, and she has to admit it's not particularly easy to remain impassive on this occasion. It's a sharper kind of pain than she's grown used to, and it makes her feel _small_ , and she doesn't like it.

She advances slowly towards him, balancing caution with urgency. She spares a moment to notice her own hallucination flit across the edges of her vision. She should have known – it's just Roan, in all his regal state, telling her she did a good job on her latest mission.

Pathetic. Predictably pathetic.

Of course her deepest desire is just to have the genuine approval of someone she respects. She knew that when she woke up this morning, has known it every day of her adult life – she doesn't need some fog of technical wizardry to tell her that. She bats Roan physically to one side and makes straight for Bellamy.

Between the two of them, Echo and Gabriel manage to grasp Bellamy's arms and drag him away from the danger. He protests loudly – heartbreakingly so – and calls out desperately to that vision of Clarke only he can see as they go. But that's fine. It's to be expected, and Echo's not about to let it get to her.

She's rising above it, one step at a time.

By the time Gabriel reckons they have put enough distance between themselves and the anomaly, Bellamy is weeping messily and mumbling in confusion. It's not a pretty sight.

"It's normal for him to be disorientated like this." Gabriel says with a shrug. "It'll wear off. It might clear quicker if he sleeps it off."

Echo draws in a steadying breath, and crouches at Bellamy's side.

"Clarke?" He croaks out, as he turns to look at her.

"You'll see her soon, Bellamy. I promise. Get some rest, and then you'll feel better when we go to meet Clarke."

"But she was right here." He protests, the first actual sentence she has heard from him in the best part of an hour.

"I know." Echo soothes, with all the sensitivity she can muster. Given the circumstances, that's not a lot of sensitivity. "She'll be back soon, and you can see her then. Go to sleep."

Unusually compliant, he nods, brushes aside a confused tear, and leans back against the nearest tree.

…...

Bellamy wakes up, and Echo isn't ready for it. She's spent the last couple of hours watching over him with nothing to do but plan how and when she will end things with him, how and when she will tell him what he saw in the anomaly, but she's still not decided. All she knows is that it is a special kind of cruelty that she will have to tell him about his hallucination of Clarke – Gabriel is certain that he won't remember it for himself, because he got sufficiently close to entering the anomaly that it will have wiped his mind of the memory.

"Echo?" He asks, bolt upright the moment his eyes blink open.

"I'm here. You're OK. Just rest and let me tell you what happened."

"What do you mean? What -? Octavia?"

"She's gone into the anomaly. You were about to follow her." Echo explains, although it is not strictly the whole truth. "We dragged you back here so that -"

"No. You shouldn't have – I need to go after her."

"You need to sit still until I've finished explaining." She cautions him firmly. "You won't achieve anything if you run in there unprepared, you know that. We should go back to camp and talk to Raven."

" _Raven_? We don't have time to sit around chatting to Raven. My sister is gone."

"This is tech. We should get Raven – she'll know what to do better than either of us. And you should get Clarke, because no way would she want you to do this without her. You know she regretted it last time she sent you off on a mission without her, back at Mount Weather."

"How do you know that? You weren't there." He points out belligerently.

"I know both of you well enough to know it's the truth."

He admits defeat at that, and she is glad of it. She may have the self-control of – well, of _Echo_ – but even she is beginning to struggle with the discomfort of insisting to a man she loves that he should actually be spending his time with someone else. He gets to his feet, and the three of them set off for Sanctum together, Gabriel taking the lead, Bellamy and Echo walking alongside each other.

She wonders how often they will walk like this together, in the future. She likes to think that they might still be friends when she breaks things off and he settles down with Clarke. No, maybe that's not quite right – they were never friends in the first place. They started sleeping together long before they started truly speaking to each other. She wonders, then, if maybe they could _start_ a friendship when they -

She stops wondering anything at all, very abruptly, when a crazed man cuts in front of them and launches himself at Bellamy.

"Cage?" Bellamy chokes out in shock, even as he tries to push the man away. It's tricky, though, because the force of the impact has knocked him to the ground and the newcomer has, quite literally, the upper hand.

"You're the impostor!" This stranger is yelling, for no apparent reason. "It's _you_! I'll kill you, I'll -"

He doesn't finish his sentence. He's a bit busy trying to pull Echo's knife from his throat. She waits for him to finish choking on his own blood, kicks the body once to check he's really dead, and then extracts the knife herself. It's a good knife, so she cleans it calmly on a scrap of the dead attacker's shirt.

Gabriel, meanwhile, appears to be losing his mind.

"What – did you? Who?"

"Cage Wallace." Bellamy supplies, sitting up and rubbing his forehead. Echo's not sure whether it's pain or confusion that's bothering him, as she crouches by his side.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Bellamy shakes his head, at a loss. "It's impossible, because he died on Earth over a century ago – at least, I think he did. I never saw the body myself."

"You're telling me that's Cage Wallace." Echo repeats, because, to be clear, this is _preposterous_. And she's not in the business of entertaining preposterous ideas.

"I'm telling you that's Cage Wallace. He seemed – disorientated, didn't he?"

Gabriel speaks up at that, forming rather more sensible sentences than his last attempt at speech. "Of course he's disorientated. He's just been through the anomaly."

" _What_?" Echo asks, growing fed up of the magic of tech.

"Makes sense, doesn't it? If people can enter the anomaly, why shouldn't they be able to leave it?"

Echo is sorely tempted to point out that they shouldn't be able to leave it because this entire conversation is _insane_. She resigns herself, however, to sheathing her knife and helping Bellamy up off the ground. She figures he needs her loyal support more than he needs her critical mind, just this moment.

Bellamy doesn't seem to want her help, though. He shrugs her off, roughly, and shuffles away from her.

"What is it?" She asks, confused.

"You killed him. You just – you killed him."

"Of course I killed him. He was about to kill you." She really doesn't understand why they're having this conversation.

"But he could have given us answers!" Bellamy cries, visibly distressed. "He could have told me how to get to my sister!"

"You would never have got to your sister if you were dead. And I don't think Cage Wallace is the kind of man who would answer your questions just because you asked him."

She knows a thing or two about keeping secrets, after all.

That's what decides the matter, in the end. She had intended to pick her moment, and plan some words, but she cannot in all good conscience continue pretending to be in a relationship with a man who doesn't even know who she is, and who's just seen another woman in his desire-fuelled hallucination. Her self-control may have held out for this long, but she's done, and they're done, and she wants this conversation done, too.

She falls unceremoniously to the dirt at his side, and begins without preamble. Efficiency is what she does best, after all – second only to loyalty.

"We're over, Bellamy. I'll stab the next guy who tries to kill you, too, because we'll always be family. But before you go to look for Octavia I'm moving my things out of your room."

"Our room." He corrects her, blinking in confusion. "I don't – where is this coming from, Echo?"

She doesn't laugh, but it's tempting. He must know full well where this is coming from. She notices Gabriel retreat discretely into the shadows as she continues to speak. "You and I both know you'd be happier with someone else."

"I love you." He insists, with more volume than conviction.

"You don't know who I am." She points out sadly. It's tempting to tell him what she means by that, by she decides that's a story for another day. That's a story to save for a time when he's chosen to listen to her, rather than only feeling obliged to hear her out because he wants to continue to sleep with someone who distracts him from missing Clarke.

"You can't just -"

"Clarke." She interrupts him firmly. " _Clarke_ is where this is coming from. A future with her is your deepest desire. You saw her in the anomaly."

He is silent for a moment, processing.

"How do you know that?" He asks, hesitant.

She wishes, in that moment, that it was something more complicated, perhaps even _nuanced_. She wishes she could tell him that it's the observation of a spy gifted in reading people, and spare him the shame of knowing what he made her watch.

But this is Bellamy, and she loves him, and so she tells him the truth.

"You spent the better part of an hour crying her name while at least seventy percent delirious. I'm pretty sure you were making out with a hallucination of her at one point."

He looks like he's been hit in the head with the butt of an axe, and it appears to take him a great deal of effort to gather his wits before he next speaks. "I'm sorry, Echo. I'm sorry you had to see that. I think – you're right. We should go our separate ways."

"Don't be stupid." She dismisses that idea out of hand. "We're not going _separate ways_. You're my family, Bellamy, and I'll love you even though nothing romantic worked out between us. We're going _the same way_ , but you're going to be in a relationship with Clarke. And that's fine with me."

With that, she gets to her feet, and rises above the grief and jealousy that threaten to spill from her eyes and roll down her cheeks.


	2. Chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who left encouraging reviews on the first chapter of this story. It made my week, or possibly my month - I'm so excited that some of you are going to give this story a chance. Shout out to Stormkpr, the greatest beta. Happy reading!

By the time they arrive back at Sanctum, Echo's eyes are more or less dry. She's a little annoyed with herself that they aren't _completely_ dry, she has to admit. It's not like she didn't know this was coming – she was always perfectly aware that Bellamy loved Clarke more. That was obvious even when they thought she was dead, and he adopted a disturbing habit of loitering near windows and staring down at the burning Earth _just because_.

But Bellamy's just about the only person in Echo's entire life who's ever chosen her – even if he did choose her from a rather small pool of candidates – so it hurts all the same.

She brushes that thought aside, and gets on with solving their current problem. She cannot help but notice that speaking her mind and calling the shots is coming to her more easily since she ended things with Bellamy, even though it's been scarcely an hour. There's something awfully liberating about knowing she can say what she likes without fear of putting him off.

That should have been her first sign that they were never a very compatible couple, she thinks wryly. She was so moved at being chosen that she's spent the last thirteen decades or so hiding any part of her personality that she feared might make him regret his choice. There is no doubt in her mind that this new arrangement will suit her better, once she gets over her grief and can get on with standing tall and leading the way rather than grovelling for the scraps of his affection.

"You go find Clarke." She instructs him now, relishing her newfound confidence. "I'm going to Raven's. Meet us there when you're ready?"

He nods, still looking slightly dazed, and heads off across the village. Gabriel mumbles an apology, and says he'll meet them there too, and then disappears on some mysterious errand of his own.

Echo, therefore, sets out to Raven's workshop alone. She's a bit nervous about it - she hides that behind a carefully blank expression, of course – because she's going to report some pretty massive news, and because she and Raven have always had an interesting relationship. When they get on, they get on really well. They've got a lot in common, after all, both strong-willed to say the least and keen to tackle any challenge that comes their way. And they both have a fairly straightforward cut-and-dried worldview in which their side is good, and the other side is evil, and that is all there is to it.

But when they disagree, they do not disagree quietly. Echo remembers that situation with Shaw like it was yesterday. And she remembers, more than anything, feeling hurt that Raven's new fancy for the engineer outweighed the six years that she'd considered her family, and outweighed any respect Raven should have felt for Echo's judgement.

Echo pushes that thought out of mind. Shaw is dead now, and obviously she's sorry for it in as much as it hurt Raven, but she never liked the man and she felt that he owed Clarke more respect. Everyone owes Clarke more respect, she's pretty sure, now she comes to think about it – she may conflicted about losing Bellamy, but she's too honest to deny that Clarke deserves a break.

"Raven?" She knocks on the door, feeling almost tentative, very aware that this workshop is not her natural habitat.

"Echo. Hey." Raven's wearing that smile she doesn't show the world often enough. "How are you doing?"

"I've been better." She admits. "We have a situation and it's going to take up a lot of your time."

Raven looks intrigued at that. "I'm listening."

"Octavia's gone. She disappeared into the anomaly. Along with Diyoza's daughter, Hope, who's a young adult now. She appeared and took Octavia and then they both went again. I'm sorry, I'm not explaining this well."

"Have a seat, Echo. You're doing fine. Adult Hope, both her and Octavia gone. What then?"

"Bellamy ran. He – he was going to walk right into the anomaly but we stopped him. On the way back we met Cage Wallace – Bellamy swears it was him – and Gabriel thinks that he came through from the other side of the anomaly."

"You were right." Raven announces, although Echo's not sure why.

"I was?"

"This is going to take up a lot of my time. Where's Bellamy now?"

Echo swallows with difficulty. "He's gone to speak to Clarke. We broke up." The first rule of concealing her emotions, she has always maintained, is to say as little as possible when struggling to hold back tears.

"I'm so sorry, Echo."

"Don't be. It was the right thing to do. They're going to be happy together, and we're all still family."

"Damn right we are." Raven agrees, pulling her into a really very unexpected but rather lovely hug.

Echo lets the hug drag on longer than she should. They have an anomaly to work out, and Octavia to save, and knowing their luck other challenges to follow, but for now she allows herself to relax and find some small comfort in her friend's arms. She even lets a tear or two trickle down onto Raven's shoulder. After all, she tells herself, there is no reason why anyone should ever find out about this moment of weakness.

"You going to be OK?" Raven asks at last, when the two of them separate.

"Yeah." She takes a deep breath, and experiments with saying something about her state of mind. She's heard that's a thing close friends do, sometimes, and based on that hug it seems Raven has decided they are close friends, today, not just grudging family. "It sucks to feel rejected, but Bellamy and me were never quite right the way he is with Clarke, you know?"

"They've always been like that. Sickening." Raven adds in a flash of cynical humour.

Echo smiles weakly, appreciating the attempt to lift her spirits. It didn't quite work, but she doesn't feel any worse, so that's almost something. She steels her resolve and decides it's time to get back on with matters more important than her relationship status. They have a mystery to solve, and she cannot sit about all day and -

"Do you want to move in here?" Raven asks, out of the blue.

"What?"

"There's a spare bedroom upstairs. I just thought you must be looking for somewhere if you're not living with Bellamy any more. And, you know, it gets kind of lonely being in this big old workshop by myself since Emori got engaged." Raven almost sounds nervous, but Echo's pretty sure Raven doesn't do _nervous._

Echo is moved, and she's not altogether comfortable with that. She doesn't like to be blindsided by emotions like this. But she never dreamed that someone she likes and respects would actually seek out her company as Raven is doing now. No one's ever genuinely wanted to live with her before, as far as she can remember.

So, of course, she does her best to sabotage the idea. "You sure you want a former spy sharing your home?"

"How do you do that?" Raven asks, suddenly bristling with anger. "How do you just – I was trying to do a nice thing, and you had to go and bring up your past like that."

"My past is part of me. The Echo who would shoot anyone for Azgeda is the same Echo who would shoot anyone who hurt my Spacekru family. I'm consistent, but it's a pretty blunt attitude to right and wrong." Another reason, she frets, why she does not belong with the Clarkes and Bellamys of this world.

"I never looked at it like that." Raven muses. "Another thing we have in common, then."

"What do you mean?"

"I used to think I was queen of the moral high ground. Then Clarke showed me I just have this conviction I'm in the right, even when it's more complicated than that."

Echo didn't come here for this. She came here to work out the anomaly, and rediscover how to take charge without worrying about whether Bellamy would find it attractive. But she seems to have accidentally ended up having a conversation about emotions with the only other person she's ever met whose poker face is even half as good as her own, and she's not quite sure how to go about processing that.

"I'd say offering me somewhere to live right now was the right thing to do." She says, hoping she does not sound too dismissive of everything Raven has shared.

"Of course it was." Raven grins without missing a beat, but Echo's beginning to wonder how much of that perky confidence is just a front, after what she's just heard.

"Great. Now can we get on with saving Octavia?"

"Sure. Let's get to it."

…...

Echo and Raven have more or less decided on a plan by the time the others arrive. Gabriel is the first to enter the workshop, and he agrees that they are wise in their intention to gather as much information as possible rather than acting rashly and sending more people into the anomaly.

Then there is a knock at the door, and Echo freezes.

 _Rise above it_.

She knew Bellamy and Clarke would get here sooner or later.

 _Rise above it_.

She's had all afternoon to prepare for this moment. She knows what she has to do – deep breath in, slow breath out, try for a smile when they walk in together.

 _Rise above it_.

They'll probably be holding hands, she warns herself preemptively. They're likely to look lovestruck – but then again, they always did look lovestruck – and they might kiss a little. But it's fine, and she can deal with it. She won't let it get to her.

Raven takes pity on her and asks Gabriel to open the door, and Echo reaffirms, for the fourth time inside of the last hour, that she was right to agree to move in here. Raven's got her back, for now at least, and that's better than nothing.

"Hey, Raven, Echo." Clarke greets them with that odd combination of warmth and efficiency that is her unique talent.

"Hey." Echo replies, frowning despite her best efforts to keep a neutral expression. She spent all that time preparing for this moment, and for what? Bellamy and Clarke aren't holding hands at all. They're even standing a polite six inches away from each other. Sure, the looks that pass between them are hardly platonic, but there's nothing new there.

Did he not do it? Did Echo go through all that this morning, only for Bellamy to fail to move things along with Clarke?

"What's the plan?" Clarke asks now, and Echo decides that telling her ex-boyfriend he's an idiot can wait a moment.

"I'll take some readings on the anomaly." Raven begins. "I need to gather as much data as possible. It must be manipulating time somehow, but the hallucinations are also a worry. Gabriel will help me – he's been studying it for years. We won't send anyone else in to explore until we have more information."

"No. Absolutely not." It is, of course, Bellamy who is against that idea. "We haven't got the time to sit around gathering data. My sister is in there."

Clarke sets a quelling hand on his arm at that, and it gets Echo wondering. They've always been prone to sharing each other's personal space, but this seems like a slightly different aspect to their dynamic. Maybe Bellamy did say something, after all.

Maybe she should quit speculating, and rise above it.

Echo moves on to explaining her role in the plan. "I'll meet with Indra and Miller. We need to get the army in shape."

"No army is going to stop technology like that." Bellamy argues.

"No. But if Cage Wallace can show up, we don't know what else is coming and we need to be ready. Fighting will be a last resort, but we should be prepared."

"I agree with Echo." Clarke announces.

Clarke has spoken, and thus, it seems, it is settled.

…...

Echo is still speculating on the nature of Clarke and Bellamy's relationship later than evening. Sorry – she's still trying to _rise above_ speculating on the nature of Clarke and Bellamy's relationship.

She's failing, OK? She's failing, and she doesn't like to fail, but the pair of them are a puzzle she can't work out. They've clearly been joined at the hip since the moment Bellamy got back to Sanctum, popping in and out of the impromptu meeting at the workshop together, and she caught sight of them at supper side-by-side. But she's barely seen them touch, and neither of them has said anything, and at the very least she thinks it would have been polite for Bellamy to tell her exactly what's going on with them.

Echo, meanwhile, occupied herself in the workshop all afternoon. Raven wanted to pack some equipment to take to the anomaly tomorrow, and Gabriel volunteered to help, and so Echo decided to stay too. She doesn't want this to be another one of those situations where Raven goes and gets cosy with some new genius and control of the situation is taken right out of Echo's hands.

Their packing is now done, and thus Echo finds herself wandering about Sanctum and procrastinating over going to get her belongings from the room she used to share with Bellamy. She doesn't really want to go ahead and just walk in there – what if he's hooking up with Clarke and she ruins their moment? She may be upset about the end of her relationship with him, but she genuinely wants things to work out for the two of them.

Loyalty is an annoying quality, she decides with some frustration. If she didn't give two hoots about Bellamy's happiness she's pretty sure her life would be a lot easier.

She decides to check the public areas of the village. If she's lucky, she reckons she might find him somewhere and be able to ask whether this is a good time for her to collect her things.

For once, luck is on her side. He's in the bar, at an otherwise empty table, nursing the dregs of a drink. Without letting herself overthink it – difficult, given overthinking things is one of her favourite hobbies – she takes a seat opposite him.

"Bellamy. I wanted to say I know you must be frustrated that I wouldn't let you go after your sister but -"

"You did the right thing." He says heavily. "Thanks for getting me out of there safely."

"No problem. Are you OK?" She asks, wondering how to go about fishing for news of him and Clarke. She's pretty sure he shouldn't be sitting and drinking alone so soon after losing his sister.

"I'm OK apart from worrying about O. Things are great with Clarke. She's just saying goodnight to Madi so I came here to tell Murphy what's going on. I was hoping to run into you, too."

"You were?" She prompts, confused.

"Yeah. I wanted to say we'd better still be friends." She snorts a little, finding his words strangely amusing. A cloud of green mist is spitting power-hungry murderers out into the woods near their home, and Bellamy is preoccupied with ensuring they have a tidy, cliched break-up.

"I hope you're saying that because you mean it and realise I'm a useful person to have around, not out of pity." She answers in the end.

"I don't keep friends because they're _useful_." He argues, affronted. "I want to keep you around because I think you're a good woman, even if you don't always believe it yourself."

She doesn't reply to that, because she can't. She doesn't know how to even begin to reply to it, so she elaborates on an earlier point, instead. "I don't need your pity. I told you what you saw in the anomaly but I never told you what I saw."

"What do you mean?"

Now that it comes to it, she isn't even nervous. She doesn't see any sense in being scared of telling him the truth, now that the truth cannot possibly lose her a boyfriend. "I didn't see some happy ending with you."

"Who did you see?" He leans forward across the table, evidently intrigued. Maybe she is not the only one who is finding it easier for them to talk now that they are not trying to hold together that outdated relationship.

"I don't think it's the person so much as the conversation. It was Roan, but I think what mattered was he was telling me I'd done a good job. He seemed proud of me."

There is a moment of silence, in which Bellamy looks at her, and she looks back at him, and she finds herself utterly convinced that, yes, they are both more comfortable together now than they have been in years.

And then Bellamy speaks, and she finds herself feeling distinctly uncomfortable, but in a good way.

" _I'm_ proud of you, for the record. I'm proud of how you handled yourself out there today and got me home and helped us make a plan to get my sister back. And I think the strength you showed in telling me what I needed to hear was incredible."

"Thanks." She says inadequately. "I – I already feel like we're better like this, you know?"

"Me too." He agrees with an easy smile.

"Is this a good time for me to come fetch my things from our old place?"

"You can have our old place." He tells her, suddenly fascinated by the remains of his drink. "I'll be moving in with Clarke."

"I'm glad to hear it." She says, and it is the truth.

"Yeah? I didn't want you to be bothered it was so quick or -"

"It's good." She cuts him off, because she thinks she might find it difficult to remain unmoved if he continues that conversational path. "Let's both move on and leave our old place for someone else. Raven's offered me her spare room, and I think it'll be better for me to take that than stay where we used to live."

"Sure. You can fetch your stuff whenever. I already moved out." He admits to his empty glass.

Of course he did. He's head over heels in love with Clarke – of course he moved in with her the second he got home.

But somehow, as Echo looks over at her newest friend, and looks back on what is quite possibly the most personal conversation she's ever managed to have with him, she finds it is not so difficult to overcome the pain of seeing him move on so quickly.

Rising above it has never been easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The encouragement you guys have given me for writing this is incredible. It's bringing me so much joy to hear that there are other Bellarke-shipping Echo fans out there. Thank you for making a Penguin very happy!
> 
> Thanks to Stomrkpr, for betaing this despite deep-seated ambivalence towards Echo.
> 
> Happy reading!

It is with mixed feelings that Echo sets out for the anomaly the next morning. Sure, she's about to come face-to-face with a green fog of technical wizardry that eats young women whole, but at least she feels like she is doing it on her terms, this time round. She has some idea what to expect, and they have something of a plan, and she cannot imagine a better team to take on this challenge.

Raven is leading the way, naturally. She makes no attempt to hide the way her leg troubles her as she marches through the forest – rather, she owns it, and gets on with striding along regardless. Echo's proud of her for that. Raven's come a long way, since they first ended up on the Ring, towards accepting the injury that has changed her life and embracing it as part of herself and her story.

Gabriel is close behind Raven, wittering on as he is wont to do, with his theories and observations and two lifetimes' worth of anomaly anecdotes. Echo despises him a little – how has he been studying this thing for so long but got nowhere?

Any suggestion that she despises him because she has a problem with clever men distracting Raven from the people who should really matter to her is, of course, preposterous.

Third in line comes Clarke, and Echo thinks it doesn't suit her to walk alone. She's so used to seeing her with Madi or Bellamy at her side, but both of them have stayed back in Sanctum. It was obvious that Madi would stay, being a child for all that she was so recently the Commander, but it took a bit more work to convince Bellamy that he ought not join them. It was Clarke who managed it in the end – who else could ever change his mind? She pointed out that returning to the place where his sister was taken would cause him distress, which might lead him to act impulsively. She reminded him, too, that they could put together a perfectly balanced and competent team without him. But she sealed the deal, in that delicately manipulative way of hers, by asking him to stay in Sanctum to look after Madi.

That was a task he wasn't going to fail at twice. Not after he let her down so badly last time.

So that's it. Those three, and Echo bringing up the rear. Someone has to come last, after all, and she doesn't see Clarke becoming that kind of person any time soon.

As if hearing that thought, Clarke decides to surprise her. She pauses, drops back, and starts walking at Echo's side.

Echo's not sure what to do about this development. She has never been friends with Clarke, but she has a deep and genuine respect for her that leaves her feeling awed almost as much as she feels awkward at the thought of attempting a social interaction with her.

"How are you doing this morning?" Clarke asks. So far, so unobjectionable.

"OK. You?"

"Yeah, OK. A little nervous, I guess."

"That's not surprising." Echo says, tone as close to reassuring as she can manage. Casual chit-chat with Bellamy's true love is not exactly her strong suit, she fears.

"Do you think we should have made a plan for the hallucinations?" Clarke asks. It is a question built on an instinct Echo recognises, in many ways – the surest way of conquering fear is to concentrate on strategy, in her experience.

"We have a plan for the hallucinations." She knows she's being dismissive, but she finds it difficult enough to show sympathy to people who _aren't_ sleeping with her ex-boyfriend.

"We do?"

"Yes. The plan is _don't follow the hallucinations_."

Clarke snorts, but there is no humour in it. "Easy for you to say."

Echo's not sure why, but she feels that there's an insult in there, somewhere. As if she's been showing the world such a convincing poker face that Clarke thinks she's actually an unfeeling monster.

She wants to rise above it.

She _needs_ to rise above it.

But she can feel herself falling, sinking into loneliness, tumbling headlong into jealousy.

"Echo?" Clarke prompts, hand hovering hopelessly in the air near her shoulder. "Echo? You OK?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." Clarke argues, and just like that, Echo feels less misunderstood, and some of that loneliness flees. People are not in the habit of noticing that she's not fine.

She doesn't miss the irony, though, of it being Bellamy's new girlfriend of all people who mentions it.

"I will be fine." Echo says, in the end, a compromise between honesty and stiff upper lip that seems to suit the moment.

"I hope you will. I – I am sorry about Bellamy, Echo."

"Don't be." She even manages a smile as she says the words. "I'm happy for him. Really. I'm just – I'm still adjusting. But I'm happy he finally did something about it." She declares with more conviction than she knew she could manage.

"I wouldn't put it quite like that." Clarke offers, half way to grinning.

"What do you mean?"

"I wouldn't say _he_ did something about it. I mean -" She cuts herself off, abruptly. "Sorry, Echo. I shouldn't be telling you all this, it must suck for you to listen to it."

"No." Echo rushes to disagree. "Actually – I think, it helps to know the truth. So I can move on. But also to reassure myself he's OK."

"It's great that you're still looking out for him." Clarke is very smiley today, and Echo supposes that's no very surprising consequence of finally entering a relationship with the man she's been in love with for centuries. "If you're sure you want to know...?"

"Sure." She confirms, breathing deeply. Whatever Clarke says, she won't let it get to her – and she knows that the reassurance that all has turned out for the best will make it worth seeing this through.

Clarke studies her for a long moment, and then begins. "He walked into the house, devastated about his sister. We talked about that for a long time, so I thought that was why he was there." Echo suspects that a few clingy hugs are being left out of this version of events, but she can understand why that might be the case. "Anyway, so he finished telling me about Octavia, and then just as he was leaving, he went and dropped in the fact that you'd broken up with him. Out of the blue."

"He didn't say why?" She asks, exasperated beyond belief that Bellamy would put so little faith in Clarke's love for him even after all this time.

"No. So I said I was really sorry and tried to cheer him up and then – well, I asked him why. And then it all came out. And you know how he is, Echo – he honestly seemed to think I didn't feel the same way."

"He must be the only person on this moon who didn't already see how you felt."

"That's what I told him." Clarke says, still smiling that smile. "And the rest – I guess the rest is history."

"Good." Echo gives a firm nod, head held high, dignity still more or less intact.

She doesn't intend to hold a grudge against Clarke for this. Bellamy is happy, and that's what matters. And holding a grudge is not going to save them from this anomaly, nor bring Echo happiness. It would hardly be an effective strategy, therefore. And anyway, Clarke seems to have decided that they are more or less friends now, and Echo figures that she could use more friends. So, yes, friendship, not resentment, must be the order of the day.

But it's a good thing she's never backed down from a challenge, because she fears that not holding this grudge might be easier said than done.

…...

Echo might have expected that a friendship with Clarke would be desirable but challenging, yet it seems that Clarke is determined to make it as easy for her as possible. As she treats her with nothing but respectful cheeriness while the day draws on, Echo begins to understand how it is that Clarke always seems to win people over. Echo was expecting mistrust, or coldness, or at the very least awkwardness. But Clarke has evidently taken the news that Echo wants her and Bellamy to be happy at face value, and simply gets on with treating her with a generous dose of decency and warmth.

They spend the later part of the morning sitting on the ground some metres from the anomaly and holding a selection of scientific instruments whose purpose neither of them truly understands. Gabriel and Raven, meanwhile, march about all over the place, taking their readings and waving their Geiger counters.

Echo only knows that the thing in Raven's hand is a Geiger counter because she asked.

She just needed to know _something_. She hates sitting here, feeling useless, and watching Raven make a new friend. All her life she has been a woman of action and of decisiveness, but since Skaikru brought their technology into her world she has found herself feeling increasingly ignorant and _spare_.

Clarke does it again – that eerie mind reading. At this rate, Echo is going to have to admit that they have a lot in common, or something.

"I don't know what I'm doing here." Clarke laments, holding a small tube up to the light as if expecting it to reveal its secrets. "I'm a doctor. And sometimes a leader. I know nothing about – about _any_ of this."

"At least you grew up Skaikru. I had never even heard of _gravitational field strength_ until I met Raven."

"I think growing up Skaikru makes it worse. I feel like I should understand this stuff. My father was an engineer, you know?" Of course Echo doesn't already know that. Why would she?

"Like Raven?"

"Not much like Raven. More working late, less sass."

"It's the sass that makes her special." Echo protests, somehow feeling like Clarke's words hold an implicit criticism.

"Yeah. I know."

Silence falls between them for a while. They may be trying for a vaguely companionable atmosphere, but they are hardly going to become the firmest of friends in one morning.

Echo's always been content with silence, before now. Or at least, she's always been _used to_ it – silence is a natural consequence of having very few friends and losing her family at a young age. But today she doesn't want to sit here in the quiet. She cannot quite make sense of why that should be. Maybe she fears that the voices of discontent in her head would get too loud if given space to grow, and that might make it harder to keep her calm composure. Maybe she's just excited that so many good things have happened in the last twenty-four hours despite the obvious downsides. Having gained Raven as a roommate and Clarke as – well, whatever this counts as – she wants to focus on building positive momentum, and not dwell on all that is negative.

 _Kindness_ is a feature of friendship, she knows. Maybe she ought to give that a go. What's the worst that could happen?

"I think it's obvious why you're here, Clarke. You said it yourself. You may not know much about tech but you're a leader. Raven and Gabriel feel more confident with you here."

Clarke looks up at that, surprise easy to read in her gaze. "Thanks, Echo. I know we all feel more calm and confident having you here too. I don't think I've ever seen you panic about anything."

Of course, just because Clarke hasn't _seen_ Echo panic doesn't mean it's never happened. But she doesn't think pointing that out would be very helpful right now.

Raven approaches them, then, and Echo welcomes the distraction. Straightening her spine a little, she gives her new roommate something resembling a smile.

"Have you finished with that Geiger counter?" She asks.

Raven looks puzzled. "You remembered?"

Echo's a little hurt by that – why should it be such a shock that she remembers things? She was trained from the earliest years of her childhood to observe and memorise, after all. "Of course I remembered."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sound surprised." Raven says in a rush, apparently realising her mistake. "That's not bad, Echo. Looks like I should bore you with mechanic chat more often."

 _Not bad_ is excessive praise, she's pretty sure. All she did was remember two whole words, and then roll them out at the appropriate moment. But Raven's looking at her with real respect, so she decides that, excessive or not, she'll take that praise to heart.

…...

It's been a long day. Sure, Echo has spent most of it sitting down and watching other people do the work, but somehow she's still exhausted. If anything, she thinks sitting down has her even _more_ exhausted – it is tiring in a very different way to watch Raven spend the whole day on her feet and suffering discomfort from her leg, yet be told that there is nothing she can do to help.

By the time they get back to the workshop that evening, Raven is optimistic that she has the data she needs to make a start on working out the secrets of the anomaly. Gabriel has taken himself back to his tent, refusing to live in the village for his own mysterious reasons, and Clarke has headed back to the home she now shares with Bellamy as well as Madi.

Echo is carrying rather a lot of things. She might not know much about tech, but she does know that Raven will be furious if she breaks anything. On entering the workshop, therefore, she carefully sets down her various burdens and makes a start on emptying her pack.

Raven is still on her feet, of course, bustling about the place for no apparent reason. Sometimes Echo thinks she just likes to keep busy.

She decides she'd quite like to do something about that. Cautiously, she speaks. "I'm not going to tell you to sit down because I know you'd hate that. But I am going to tell you that if you decide to sit down I can get us both something to eat."

To her utter shock, Raven does not bristle with defensive pride. "Thanks, Echo. I'd appreciate that."

Before Raven has chance to change her mind, Echo is out of the door and half way to the tavern. When she arrives, she notes that the place is deserted tonight, with just one young man she loosely recognises staffing the place. She sources a selection of food, more or less manages to smile at the helpful bartender, and gets herself home again.

By the time she arrives, Raven has, of course, rearranged most of the equipment in the room and started tinkering with what looks to Echo's untrained eye like a small radio dish.

"Leave that and eat?" Echo suggests, trying to make it sound like a suggestion, rather than an order.

Raven nods, and takes a seat at the table. It's a workshop table, rather than a dining table, but that doesn't seem to bother her – she simply nudges a few bits and pieces to one side and gestures expectantly to the space she has created.

Echo tries not to roll her eyes as she deposits their supper amidst broken circuitry and takes a stool near Raven's side.

As if finding their dining arrangements perfectly normal, Raven strikes up lighthearted conversation. "What shall we do this evening?"

Echo wasn't expecting that. "Whatever you want." She says, partly because it is Raven's workshop and she is the newcomer, and partly because she has absolutely no useful ideas to contribute to a conversation about leisure activities. And anyway, shouldn't they be finding Octavia, not playing chess or whatever else Raven might have in mind?

"Help me out here." Raven admonishes her with a frown. "I'm trying to learn how to be a good roommate to you. What do you usually do in the evenings? I know you used to come to film nights on the Ring but it never seemed like you were that into them."

Echo lets out a long sigh, and steels herself to be honest. "I don't know what I like to do in the evenings, Raven. Mostly I screw Bellamy but that's not really an option any more." She says it as lightheartedly as she can, tries to pass it off as a cynical joke, but she can see from Raven's narrowed gaze that she has not quite managed it.

Whatever. She can rise above it. She's had plenty of practice at that, now.

"You helped me pack last night." Raven points out, being a good friend and moving the conversation on and away. "You were pretty helpful. I was going to get started on my data analysis tonight. It wouldn't be the most exciting thing you've ever done. But if you'd like to give me a hand that would be great."

Echo considers that offer for a good few seconds. She knows nothing about tech – she's not entirely clear on what _data analysis_ even is except that it's the kind of thing Raven and Emori used to talk about in hushed tones on the Ring. But she does like to be helpful. It's basically her favourite occupation, in fact – being of use to her _kru_. And she figures that having something distracting to do can only help her in her quest to keep moving on with her life in the wake of breaking up with Bellamy.

"Sure." She says, at last. "If you really think there's something I can do – I'd like to help however I can."

Raven does not linger over dinner, so Echo follows her lead, and before long they are making a start on the much anticipated _data analysis_. Raven explains that it is simply a matter of collecting together all the numbers they measured today and looking for patterns in them. On learning that, Echo feels rather foolish – by the sounds of it she could have joined in those conversations between Raven and Emori, if she'd been brave enough. And then she might have had friends and roommates years ago.

Raven sets her to work on typing in numbers onto a tablet. She's very apologetic about it all, and explains that it's an important but dull task, but Echo can deal with that. She just wants to serve her people in whichever way is best suited to this time and place.

The task may be dull, and Raven may be keen to apologise for the lack of imagination in their evening plans, but Echo finds herself enjoying it. They chat a little along the way, and she finds herself realising that this is what having a roommate will be like. In the quiet and dull everyday moments there will be conversation and companionship.

She's rather looking forward to it.

It's silly, of course, because she shared one small room with Bellamy for several years. But mostly they were screwing not talking, and honest conversation was never their best thing – yet another reason why she should have realised their relationship was not a fulfilling one much earlier than she did. But she knows that now, and it will be OK, just as soon as she gets used to her new normality.

The conversation Raven initiates now, for example, is one she could never have imagined having with Bellamy while they were together. In a twist of irony, in fact, it is almost exactly the conversation they had while she ended their relationship.

"Echo?"

"Mhmm?"

"What do you see in the anomaly?"

Echo nearly drops the datapad in shock. Thirty-six hours ago, Raven was the family member she had always kind of wished would like her more. And now, all of a sudden, they are not only roommates, but they are the kind of close friends who discuss their deepest desires?

She cannot get her head round it. And that's saying something – she's hardly stupid.

But something inside of her is crying out for a connection like this. The idea that she might have someone in her life who invites this kind of honest confession is tempting beyond belief.

So she goes for it. She takes a risk, and dives, free-falling into the unknown.

"I see Roan telling me I did a decent job on some mission." She admits, throat thick, talking very carefully to the tablet in her hand rather than to the roommate by her side. "Pathetic, huh? Just my King telling me I'm competent. I have small dreams."

"I don't think that's a small dream. It's not a silly thing at all, to want to be respected for being good at what you do. I always thought that was what I wanted from life."

"But it's not?"

"Apparently not." Raven takes a shuddering breath. "Mine's worse. It's – it's my leg. I hate myself for it but... I see myself with two working legs."

Echo falls her heart plummeting to her heels at that. She has always been proud of her self-control, but there is no way she can keep a straight face on hearing that.

"Raven -"

"It's stupid." Raven continues, which is just as well. Echo has no idea what she would have said. "It's stupid and I hate it. I've spent years learning to accept my leg. I thought – I thought I'd done that. I was proud of myself for being badass regardless."

"The two things don't have to be in conflict. You can be proud of yourself for being a badass and for making so much progress towards accepting what happened to you, while still mourning the different life you would have had if you had never been shot in the spine."

"But it's not _mourning_ , Echo. It's my _deepest desire_."

"OK, so what is a _desire_? Isn't a desire just intense curiosity? It's something you wish you could try, something you'd love to be able to experience. Just because you wish you could _try_ living the life you would have had without being shot, doesn't mean you're not proud of yourself in this life. It doesn't mean that, if you tried them both, you wouldn't choose to be the brilliant Raven you are _now_ at the end of the day."

That's the most Echo's ever said in one go. She's pretty sure it's the most she's ever said in one _evening_. But Raven is hurting – Raven, who's done so much in the last day to make Echo hurt _less_ – and it turns out, that is quite enough motivation to make her push through her nervousness at speaking about such a personal topic. She knows what it's like to feel alone when you're in crisis, and she wouldn't want that for Raven, not now.

Raven hasn't replied, so that's a worry. She's still sitting with the same posture, tears running unchecked down her cheeks. But there's a thoughtful frown on her face that Echo recognises from six long years of observing and learning. It's the frown that means she's processing new information, and deciding whether it's of any use to her.

At last, she breaks the silence.

"Thanks."

That's it. That's one single syllable, but Echo hears a rather more complex message. She hears grief and gratitude, twisted in knots. She hears that becoming Raven's roommate is the best decision she's ever made, and that the two of them will be good for each other.

Most of all she hears hope. Because today is the first day of the rest of her life. It's a day when she hasn't seen Bellamy, and _that's OK._

It's a day to rise up and be her own woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging about this story, and especially to Stormkpr for the most supportive betaing. Happy reading!

Echo has grown used to hearing Raven curse. They did live together on the Ring, after all, even if it is only four days that they have been sharing this workshop with all its close and undiluted proximity. So she is familiar with Raven's loud and frequent complaints when some soldering or sums do not go quite to plan.

There's something different about this bout of cursing, though. It is not frustration so much as _despair_ she thinks she can hear in her roommate's voice. And that surprises her, because Raven had said she thought she was close to working out what was going on with the anomaly. She should, presumably, be celebrating reaching a conclusion, not despairing that the problem is beyond solving.

“Raven? Are you OK?” Echo asks, because that seems like the simplest place to start.

“I'm OK now. But I'm not going to be OK much longer. None of us are.” That sounds ominous.

“What do you mean? What's happened?”

“I've worked it out. The last part of the anomaly puzzle.”

“Isn't that a good thing?”

“It would be, but this...” Raven breaks off with a panicked look in her eye. “I knew it was messing with time. I should have realised it was messing with _space_ , too.”

Echo is getting annoyed, now. Raven knows she doesn't understand enough science to have followed that train of thought. But, as ever, she tries to rise above her annoyance and ask a useful question instead.

“What do you mean, messing with space?”

“It makes sense – manipulate one variable in space-time and you pull everything else out of shape, too.”

No. That doesn't make sense to Echo. Not at all. But snapping won't get her anywhere, of course, so she simply fixes Raven with a glare and waits for her to explain herself in comprehensible English.

She doesn't have to wait long. Raven meets her gaze and seems to understand her mistake.

And then, just like that, Raven explains why she is on the verge of despair.

“The nearest planet is about to crash into us.” She says, not even pretending to keep her calm. “We have a couple of weeks at most.”

“How is that even possible?” Echo asks, blinking in shock. She's faced death and destruction plenty of times before, so her confusion takes priority over her fear, for now.

That seems to calm Raven down, actually. She stops looking quite so panicky and gets on with explaining herself.

“Imagine all of space and time is like a trampoline.” She begins, drawing in the air with her hands.

“What's a trampoline?”

“You should have paid more attention in movie nights. OK, imagine it's a bedsheet, and someone's holding the corners. As long as you hold it level, and there are no disturbances, everything's good.”

“Time and space are a bedsheet.” Echo repeats, somewhere between dubious and dutiful.

“Yeah. But when you start messing with the system, that's when things go wrong. So it's like this moon and the planet next to us are apples on the bedsheet.” Echo can't imagine why anyone would want to put apples on a bedsheet, but she supposes this is not the moment to ask such a facetious question. “And the anomaly is pulling at the bedsheet, and bending time out of shape. And when that happens – the apples roll towards each other.”

Echo is pretty sure she didn't need that detailed analogy. Raven could have just said that if you screw with time enough planets start crashing into each other. But then she'd have deprived Raven of an opportunity to calmly explain physics rather than panicking, and that would have been a shame.

She therefore nods and gets on with the next matter to be dealt with. “So what can we do to straighten the bedsheet out and stop the apples rolling towards each other?”

“I don't think we can do anything. That's the bad news. But the good news is that, according to the model I'm working on, the anomaly leads to different times and places. So we might be able to evacuate to somewhere that isn't about to be destroyed.”

“Won't we have the apples and bedsheet problem there, too?”

“That's what we need to find out. That's why someone needs to go in there and get us more data from the inside.”

The moment Raven says the words, Echo knows who that _someone_ should be.

…....

Raven will not hear of discussing the mission further until the rest of Spacekru are present, along with Clarke, Indra, and Gabriel. Echo thinks that's silly, really. She's not going to stop being the sensible choice of person to send into the anomaly just because there are more people in the room. But Raven is already rather stressed, so she agrees to it, and goes off to start spreading the word that a meeting is being held in the workshop imminently.

And then she goes back to the workshop and asks Raven questions about science whose answers she has no interest in, simply in the hope of giving her friend something more useful to do than fretting. Raven is an impressive woman in many ways, endlessly competent and self-assured when it comes to social situations. But she does have a silly way of doubting her competence to deal with any crisis and Echo wishes she would just stop and have a little more faith in herself. She knows that's unlikely to happen, though. Raven has been this way at least as long as Echo has known her – she still remembers Raven swearing hope was lost just a short while before the rocket took off and the death wave hit.

Still. A girl can dream.

Echo is relieved when people start arriving for the meeting. She's running out of questions to pose, and is about to resort to asking if she could learn more about the purpose of that Geiger counter.

Her relief does not vanish when Bellamy and Clarke knock at the door. It hiccups a little, perhaps, the odd hint of nervousness peeking through, because she's still working out what her relationship with them is like, now. She's established that she is more or less friends with Clarke, and that she is more honest with Bellamy than she ever was when they were together, but she doesn't quite know whether she can be friends with both of them at once, in the same room, being in love right in front of her.

Whatever they may throw her way, she will simply have to rise above it.

He's shaved.

_Rise above it_.

He's actually gone and _shaved_.

_Rise above it_.

He's cut his hair, too, started wearing it in curls over his forehead like she remembers from the time before Praimfaya.

_Rise above it_.

She's not quite sure how to rise above _this._ She's sure he didn't mean it as a slap in the face, but that's what it feels like. As if his entire relationship with her was just passing his time, and letting himself go, and waiting for the moment when he could get back on with being his real self. As if he couldn't wait to be rid of that beard she remembers feeling against her lips. As if he's spent a hundred and thirty-one years just waiting for the right moment to remember who he truly is.

Echo shakes her head, desperate to patch together some semblance of self-control. Clarke is smiling at her, clearly intent on pursuing that friendship they started the other day, and she needs to get on with smiling back.

She can't stand around and grieve for her ex-boyfriend's damn facial hair. It's ridiculous, and pathetic, and she has spent her entire life striving to be neither ridiculous nor pathetic.

It gets harder, then. Echo is just about on the point of pasting on a neutral expression and welcoming them through the door when Bellamy hugs her. And not just a passing acquaintance hug, oh no, but the kind of full-on intense embrace he might be expected to give a close friend he hadn't seen in four days.

That makes perfect sense, in some ways. He hasn't seen her in four days. And they did establish, four days ago, that their friendship was closer than ever. But she's pretty sure hardcore waist-squeezing hugs ought to be reserved for friends he's never been in a romantic relationship with. It's quite difficult not to remember why she was first attracted to him when she's got her nose in his neck.

She pulls away as quickly as politeness will allow, schooling her features carefully. Sure, he's objectively physically attractive, but that doesn't mean they were right together. She knows that, and she's repeated it to herself countless times in recent days. And apart from anything else, he doesn't look like _her_ Bellamy, now that he's shaved and cut his hair, so really, everything's _fine_.

Everything is totally and absolutely fine, and no stupid haircut is going to drag her down.

“Hey, guys.” She greets them with determined warmth. “How are you doing, Clarke?” It is easier to speak to her newest friend, first, than to actually look at Bellamy.

“I'm well. You?”

“Yeah, good.” She turns to Bellamy at last, and tries for a teasing tone. “I'm not sure what I make of that haircut, though.”

He runs a hand through his curls self-consciously. “Yeah. You know – lot of changes this week.”

She almost snorts in cynical laughter. That's one way of putting it – the loss of his sister, the end of one relationship and the beginning of the next. And a close encounter with a razor. _A lot of changes_ , sure.

Raven calls the meeting to order, then, and Echo is glad of the opportunity to arrange her thoughts. The very fact that she is grieving for Bellamy's beard more than for his heart tells her everything she needs to know, she decides. It's hardly surprising that she should sometimes find herself nostalgic for her familiar old life, but she knows in her heart that she is on the right path now.

Raven is using that bedsheet analogy again, and something about it has Echo smiling. She can't quite put her finger on it. Maybe it's something to do with the way Raven lights up when she is giving an animated explanation of a technical point, or perhaps it's just the warm glow that comes with having been the one who got to hear this point first. That's the thing about being someone's roommate, now. It's like having a built-in best friend, and she's never really had one of those before.

When the explanation is through, Raven shares the news that someone now needs to enter the anomaly to gather further data.

That's when all hell breaks loose.

Bellamy tries to volunteer first, but that has Clarke telling him furiously that his doing so is _insane_. Gabriel gives a solemn nod and steps forward, but then backs down at the sight of Indra's drawn sword.

Echo has a lot of respect for Indra. Really she does. But the woman should maybe learn not to draw her sword until it's actually time to use it.

So it is that Echo sits back and watches a handful of people argue over who should get the honour of walking into the unknown. Even Murphy volunteers at one point, which is beyond bizarre. It's obviously only an attempt to impress Emori and no one takes it seriously. Indra waves her sword around a bit for good measure, and Clarke goes and says she reckons it's her duty to be the one to go.

Echo leaves them to it. She waits for them to stop shouting over each other. And then she stands up.

“Now you've finished that, we can all agree I'm going.” She says, calm and quiet, yet pitched to carry to every corner of the room.

Her suggestion is met with silence. Murphy sits down, and Indra sheathes her sword. Clarke is doing that frown she does when considering something, and Emori is nodding her respect.

Raven is the first person to object. “No, Echo. That's why we're having this meeting. I knew you'd go and volunteer like that, but we need to think this through.”

“I've thought this through. It should be me. Are we done here?”

The frown on Raven's face says that they are anything but _done here_. “You can't just say that. We should discuss it and -”

“It has to be me.” Bellamy interrupts, apparently perfectly serious.

Echo resists, with significant difficulty, the temptation to hit him. Clarke appears to be struggling with that, too, tugging ineffectually at his arm and urging him to sit back down. It _obviously_ shouldn't be Bellamy. Echo was born and raised for tasks like this – ventures into the unknown, surviving only on her wits and prepared for anything. Bellamy was born and raised in a tin can, and yeah, sure, the Mount Weather mission was impressive, but this is not truly his calling. In fact, she's pretty certain he hasn't thought about his suitability at all and is volunteering for all the wrong reasons. Reasons like _my sister, my responsibility_ , and like his guilt for loving Clarke more.

Echo doesn't mention those things, though. She's not trying to get a rise out of him, but rather trying to get him to see sense.

“You're wrong.” She says mildly. “Out of all our people, I have the most experience of missions in hostile territory. I'm skilled with a range of weapons and this week I've started to understand the different data Raven wants collected. The anomaly hallucinations barely affect me. Do I need to go on?”

She does not need to go on. She can tell it in the way that everyone in the room is nodding.

Everyone, that is, except Raven and Bellamy.

Bellamy opens his mouth as if to speak again, but Echo beats him to it. “You have a family now, Bellamy. Stay here with Clarke and Madi and let me do this. You're needed here, but no one will miss me.”

That has him convinced – that, and Clarke's hearty agreement that she'd like him to stay home and spend some time with her. Echo reckons that's only fair. The pair of them have sacrificed too much for their people, up until now, and she thinks they deserve a break.

So that's it, confirmed. Echo is going into the anomaly.

…....

The meeting disbands rapidly, after that. There is no sense in everyone hanging around when all that needs to happen next is that Echo and Raven need to make plans together. The whole affair has Echo wondering why on Earth that meeting was necessary in the first place if they were only going to reach the conclusion that had been obvious to her from the outset. It's almost as if Raven suggested the whole thing in the vain hope of changing her mind.

She shrugs that off, and spends the afternoon memorising her orders. It's been a while since she's had to do that, but the skill comes back to her readily enough. Raven stuffs instrument after instrument into Echo's pack, explaining what to do with each of them in turn, occasionally scribbling down notes. It's what passes for domesticity, round here. Raven has sometimes suggested playing a card game or something else lighthearted in the evening, over the last couple of days, but it never seems to happen. They have had a rather more pressing issue to deal with, after all.

She suggests it again tonight. Echo is on the point of brushing the idea aside and insisting that they carry on preparing for the morning, but then she realises she can't say that.

They have finished preparing for the morning. For the first time since she moved in here, there is nothing else to do.

“We could play a card game.” She concedes.

“Cheat?” Raven asks.

Was that an instruction or a criticism? Echo isn't quite sure. “What?”

“Cheat. It's a card game. The point is that you cheat.”

“That doesn't sound like a very good game.”

“The point is that you cheat and get away with it. It's a tactical thing. It's not great with two players – it just ends up being a test of how well you know each other.”

In that case, it is a test that Echo expects to fail.

All the same, she agrees to it. It's not like she has a better idea. And Raven likes explaining things to people, so it seems only fair to give her this opportunity to teach her a new game. It even turns out to be reasonably fun, in the end. They laugh a lot, which is hardly something Echo is used to, but is certainly a welcome change.

She doesn't hang around and play for very long, though. She has a big day tomorrow and she knows from experience that she is unlikely to get very much sleep out in the field, so an early night is in order for today.

She excuses herself and is halfway up the stairs when she hears Raven's voice.

“You're wrong, you know.”

She turns, slowly, and looks back down to where her friend still sits at the table where they sat to play cards. “About what?”

“You will be missed while you're away. I'll miss you.” Raven is toying with a stray screwdriver, because this is the kind of house where there is always a stray screwdriver at hand to help distract her from any dangerously emotional conversation.

“Thanks, Raven.” She says, woefully inadequate, struggling with an unforeseen lump which seems to have made itself at home in her throat.

“You'd be really missed if – if you didn't come home. So you'd better come home.”

“I plan to.”

Raven lets out a frustrated sigh. “I just don't see why you're going at all. Why can't Indra go instead?”

“Indra's older than me, and she has that old shoulder injury. And she's got less experience of -”

“I know. I know all that.” Raven cuts her off. “I wasn't asking you for the strategic answer. I was asking for a hug.”

Raven's a confusing woman, Echo decides then. It would have been way more straightforward just to ask for a hug in actual words, she's pretty sure. All the same, she descends the stairs once more and pulls her friend into her arms.

“I'll take care.” She promises as she pulls away.

“You'd better do.” Raven says, fierce. “I've got used to having you around the last few days.”

“Yeah? I like living here. Thanks for having me.”

“It's no problem. I think it's been good for both of us. I've – I guess I've been on my own too much, you know? As a kid I only ever had Finn, and on the Ring you guys were mostly coupled up. It's good to have someone about all the time.”

“If anything happens to me, you could get a new roommate.” Echo suggests calmly. Sure, she's talking about her own death, but she's faced death stoically before now.

Raven, however, is not so stoic. “Are you hearing a word I'm saying? I don't want any old roommate. I want _you_. And I figure you deserve to hear that before you go risk your ass to save us all.”

Echo's not sure what to make of that. Talking about her feelings isn't exactly her strong suit. But she wants Raven to know that she appreciates the sentiment, and that she doesn't plan on settling for just any old roommate in the future, either.

She gives her another hug, in the end. And then she climbs the stairs, and wonders what the morning will bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter took a while! I keep getting distracted by "Together" and I've just accidentally started writing another time jump canon divergence. Thanks to everyone who's been telling me they like this story, and huge thanks to Stormkpr for betaing. Happy reading!

Echo enters the anomaly without fanfare the following morning. Raven wanted to come along into the forest and see her off, but Echo told her in no uncertain terms that it would be a waste of her time.

So it is that she is alone as she approaches the green mist.

It looks much the same as last time – a swirling mess, somehow simultaneously cloying and thick yet insubstantial as a dream. But compared with her last visit here, there is one key difference.

It is no longer Roan she sees, telling her she's done well on her mission. This time it is Raven, arms spread as if approaching for a hug, telling her that she did a good job of collecting the data they needed.

Echo is a bit annoyed with herself for that, at first. Raven has been her roommate and accidental best friend only for a few days, and already it seems her subconscious has decided that her respect and approval is her deepest desire. But then she forces herself to consider it rationally, and looks back over the six years they lived together in space. Now she comes to think about it, she's pretty sure she always craved Raven's respect, and always wished she would approve of her. She remembers, even in the days that Raven treated her with nothing more than snobbish cold contempt, she desperately wished that the fiercely clever mechanic would like her more.

So it's fine. There's nothing weird at all about her seeing her roommate here, and she should just get on with the mission.

Taking a deep breath, she steps forward into the mist.

It is difficult to describe the anomaly from the inside. It's like a tunnel, but if tunnels were made of starlight stained green. It's like a whirlpool crossed with the maze of reaper routes under Mount Weather, like a game of hide-and-seek sprung to life. It's constantly changing. Every time she blinks, the pathways shift and morph and split anew.

She needs to take care, here. So much is obvious to her the moment she enters. She doesn't need a lifetime of training in strategy to realise that walking too deep into an ever-changing maze is a phenomenally bad idea.

She should take the readings from here. That's what she decides. She'll collect the data, right where she stands, just barely inside the swirling mess of pathways, where she can still see the exit clearly. If it turns out that's not good enough, and Raven needs her to venture further, she can come and do that after.

It's a long process. The Geiger counter is for radiation – she's learnt that now. Then there are countless other numbers to jot down, something called _gravitational field strength_ to be measured, a piece of coloured paper to wave in midair for no apparent reason.

She is just packing her bag when she hears the scream.

She doesn't run towards it right away. She is too much a spy for that, however hard she might have worked on a bit of human warmth in recent times. There is no sense in her running into danger just because she can hear a scream. And she can't afford to drift too far away from the exit.

Besides which, this scream is presumably from a complete stranger, or is perhaps even a figment of her imagination. She's not trying to be cruel, but she's not one for sacrificing her people's safety over one rogue scream. She needs to get these numbers back to Raven, and quickly, because that planet is going to crash into them soon. Ignoring the scream is the only smart move.

She is about to turn her back on the noise, when she realises she recognises the voice.

It's Octavia, screaming loud and long, no decipherable words but a brittle roar of pain. She's never heard Octavia scream before, she's pretty sure. That girl is made of iron, and Echo hates to imagine the kind of horror it would take to get a scream out of her.

Damn it.

She can't leave _Octavia_ to her fate.

She does run, then, backpack bouncing against her shoulders, following the noise through shifting tunnels on pure instinct. It's difficult to do that, in here. The misty walls of the anomaly seem to play funny games with sound, bouncing the scream around and over and behind her until she can barely decide which way to turn.

Then she sees the light, and knows she's close. She puts on another burst of speed and heads for the exit.

The next thing she knows, she is in a cold, bright white room, and Octavia is strapped to a chair in the very middle of it. She's still screaming, shaking with terror or with pain, but Echo cannot for the life of her understand why.

There is no one else in the room, and nothing but the chair Octavia lies strapped to. What could possibly be making her scream at nothing?

She sees it as she ventures closer. Octavia is wearing some kind of glasses or goggles strapped over her eyes. Even so, Echo finds this all a bit unexpected. So supposing Octavia is seeing something horrific Echo cannot currently see – what could possibly be so bad as to provoke a reaction like that?

Echo is a pragmatic woman, so she doesn't hang around to answer that question. She does a quick scan of the room – no other inhabitants that she can see, but of course there could be any number of hidden security measures within these walls. There is, she supposes, nothing to be done about that. She cannot leave Octavia here to scream, and so she will have to run the gauntlet of whatever perils lie within. She looks carefully at Octavia's situation and compiles a quick plan. She will remove the goggles first, and then she will unshackle Octavia and the two of them will run from the room.

So far, so simple.

She strides forward to get on with it. She rips the goggles off, and is just making a start on cutting through the restraints when Octavia goes wild. There is no other way of describing it – her whole body is shaking with fury as she writhes in her chair and tries to headbutt Echo.

"You traitor! Get away from me! Monster! Traitor!" She screams at the top of her lungs. Even if there are no security cameras hidden in the walls, Echo guesses that everyone this side of Sanctum has heard her now.

She doesn't hesitate – she just knocks Octavia out with a carefully-placed blow to the head. It's not that she dislikes Octavia. Obviously she is, by extension, family. But she has no interest in sitting here and listening to her have a Blodreina moment when, actually, she is only trying to help.

Once Octavia is out cold, Echo's task becomes easier. She saws through the restraints with her knife, and notices that Octavia is hooked up to some kind of drip, too, with a line buried deep in her forearm.

She tears it out and hopes for the best. That'll do, she reckons, until they get back to Jackson and Clarke. In a well-timed moment of good sense, she shoves the bag of mysterious medication into her pack, thinking that her more scientifically-minded friends might like to analyse it later.

Then she hoists Octavia's limp body over her shoulders, and walks straight back into the anomaly.

…...

Three hours later, Echo is almost beginning to regret rescuing Octavia.

No. That's not true. She could never have left Bellamy's sister to scream. She may be an ice-cold spy, but she's not quite an unfeeling machine.

All the same, having rescued Octavia is causing her a fair bit of trouble. She's now hopelessly lost inside the anomaly, for one thing, the ever-changing tunnels and swirling tendrils of green light sending her disorientated and over half way to despairing. And then, just to help matters, she's had Octavia draped over her shoulders all this time. She still hasn't come round – whether from the blow to the head, or whatever was being piped into her veins, Echo isn't quite sure.

So, yes. She's lost, and she's exhausted, and in her pack is essential data which needs to be analysed back in Sanctum in time to save the human race.

It would have been logical to leave Octavia and get the instruments back to Raven. Echo knows this. It's probably the first time in her entire life that she's done something foolish out of care and concern for another person, and she doesn't like it.

Or maybe she does like it. She can imagine how grateful Bellamy will be, and how proud Raven will be, and how impressed Clarke will be, when they get back.

 _If_ they get back. At this rate, it is becoming a very real possibility that they might die of dehydration in here.

Octavia starts wriggling eventually, and Echo decides to put her down on the ground – or the green glow that passes for ground around here – until she wakes up. If she actually had a destination in mind, she might keep walking, but as she's just wandering hopelessly there doesn't seem any harm in wasting a little time while Octavia comes round.

When Octavia first blinks her eyes open, they are hazy and unfocused.

"Traitor?" She says, on seeing Echo, but this time it is more question than accusation.

"I have been." She concedes. There is no sense in hiding it. "But not today. I'm trying to get you out of here, Octavia."

"Where's here?"

She gives a humourless snort. "Good question. The anomaly, whatever that even is. Some kind of green maze that leads nowhere."

Octavia blinks, and looks left. And then she looks to her right, and squints, as if considering something.

And then, because she is Octavia Blake, and not one to lie around for long after a blow to the head, she scrambles to her feet.

"I know the way out." She declares.

This is preposterous. "Octavia, there is no way out."

"There is. And it's this way." She starts walking.

"We just came from that way." Is she perhaps leading them back to the mysterious white room, not Sanctum?

"This is the way." Octavia repeats, growing displeased now, and gesturing to Echo to catch up. "How did I even end up here? Last thing I remember I was in the white room?"

"I carried you." Echo informs her, matter of fact, covering the distance between them in long strides.

"You _carried_ me? My brother's girlfriend has been _carrying me_ around this place?" Echo sighs. Sure, she and Octavia are not the best of friends, but she thought they'd moved past the suspicion and outright hatred that characterised the battle over Eden.

"Your brother's _ex_ girlfriend."

Octavia looks slightly less spitting mad now. "What happened?"

"Clarke happened."

There is a heartbeat of perfect silence, broken only by their breathing as the pair of them pace onward.

And then Octavia lets out a single burst of laughter. It is half way to a cackle, Echo thinks, and reminds her a little too closely of the Blodreina era.

"Clarke happened." Octavia repeats. "That's always the answer, isn't it? Well, good for Clarke. I presume my brother is thrilled?"

"It seems that way."

 _Rise above it_.

"And what about you?" Octavia asks, somewhere between genuinely curious and moderately unkind.

 _Rise above it_.

"I want him to be happy. I know I haven't always given you reason to believe that, but I really do want the best for him."

 _Rise above_ it.

"And I think Clarke is the best for him." She concludes, firmly.

"But you're still running around saving his sister?" Octavia seems to be trying to get under her skin.

"I'm here to collect data for Raven. Saving you was a happy accident." She says. She means the words cynically, but she's not sure anyone in the world knows her well enough to hear it.

Octavia is frowning, now, still walking towards goodness only knows where. Echo can't explain why she is following her, except that she thinks knocking her ex boyfriend's sister out twice in one day would probably be less than ideal.

No words pass between them for the next hundred paces or so. When Octavia at last breaks the stillness, she surprises Echo.

"Thank you." She says.

"You're welcome."

Another hundred paces' pause.

At last, Echo decides she has had enough. She may have a fantastically dysfunctional relationship with Octavia, but she needs answers.

"Where the hell are we going?"

"I told you, I know the way out. Back to Sanctum. They planted it in my head."

Echo is so done with all this infuriating technical wizardry. "They planted it in your head." She repeats back, incredulous.

"Yeah. The goggles, and the drip. I'll explain when we find Bellamy and Clarke. There's no point me saying it more than once."

 _There's no point me saying it to you_ comes through as pretty strong subtext, there, but Echo won't let it get to her. So Octavia is not about to take her reform at face value – that should be no surprise. Very few people in the universe can match Clarke for pragmatism and objectivity, after all. She should have realised that not all of Bellamy's womenfolk were going to automatically befriend her at such short notice.

They continue to walk in frosty silence, and Octavia does not bother to tell Echo how long she expects the return journey to take.

Of course she doesn't.

Echo's pretty convinced that spending several hours alone with Octavia would have been uncomfortable enough in normal circumstances. But between the green mist, and whatever happened in the white room, and one well-placed blow to the head, she thinks that this is discomfort on a whole new level.

…...

They stumble out of the anomaly, exhausted, fed up with each other, and ready to go home.

Or at least, that's how Echo feels. And given Octavia is barely speaking to her, she decides to go ahead and presume that she's feeling much the same.

They stumble out to the sight of a substantial crowd, too. The whole of Spacekru, with Clarke and Gabriel for good measure.

The moment they emerge, Octavia runs towards her brother and flings herself into his arms. There's a lot of crying on Bellamy's part, and a lot of miscellaneous snuffling noises on Octavia's part, and Echo has to admit that the whole thing is pretty touching, even if she's about ready to knock Octavia out again by now.

It must be nice to be missed like that, Echo thinks. It must be nice to have a welcoming committee, and a brother to run to with open arms.

She stops thinking that very abruptly, though, when Raven steps forward and engulfs her in a fierce embrace.

"I'm OK." Echo says, even as she returns the hug, slightly taken aback at the sheer force of this welcome home.

"You've been gone fourteen hours." Raven sounds angry, but Echo supposes she is more angry with the universe in general that with her specifically. She didn't choose to be gone fourteen hours, after all.

"I'm sorry. Things didn't go to plan."

"You don't say." Raven grumbles, still hugging her. "How did you find Octavia? That wasn't the mission."

"It's a long story." She wonders about pulling away from the hug, but it's quite nice being welcomed back from a mission gone wrong, she decides.

She does pull back from the embrace, moments later. Not out of choice, as such, but because Emori appears by her side, grumbling that it's her turn for a hug, now. And then Murphy of all people insists on welcoming her home, and Bellamy and Clarke engulf her in some weird group hug that she supposes might feel a little bit like _family_ , if she suspends her natural cynicism for a moment.

"We were so worried about you." It is Clarke who says it, and the strangest thing is that Echo isn't even surprised. In just a few short days, she has apparently added Clarke to the very short list of people she supposes she might expect to notice if she was missing.

She stops being hugged, then, and looks at the group gathered around. They are all grinning, some of them with tears on their cheeks. And no one has asked after the data, yet, but quite a few of them have asked after her health.

That's when she realises it.

She's ashamed that she didn't notice it sooner, if she's being honest. She took pride in her observational skills, in a previous life, but today she has been woefully slow to see the truth.

These people were here for _her_. They weren't waiting to welcome Octavia home, because she wasn't supposed to be bringing Octavia back today – that wasn't her mission. They had no way of knowing that she would be with Octavia, so the only plausible explanation for their presence is that her overdue return had them so worried that they were standing out here in the forest out of concern for _her_.

It looks like Raven was telling her the truth, last night. She's not a disposable Azgeda warrior any more.

She's Echo kom Skaikru, and she has a family now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who is reading and enjoying this story, and to Stormkpr for betaing. Happy reading!

All Echo wants is to spend a peaceful evening with Raven. They haven't exactly lived together long enough to have built up a routine, yet, but they're over half way there, she thinks. Probably if left to their own devices they would sit together by Raven's workbench, and eat their meal off plates perched precariously atop heaps of miscellaneous technological junk, and then talk about the anomaly problem until late into the night.

Echo doesn't get what she wants, of course. She very rarely gets what she wants, as a rule.

The group who met her and Octavia as they left the anomaly are walking back to Sanctum together, now. Clarke and Bellamy are leading the way, naturally, while Octavia and Gabriel loiter at their shoulders, just half a pace behind, and pretend that they have any power over the situation whatsoever. Murphy and Emori are in their own little world, as they so often are, and Echo half wonders why they showed up at all.

No, it was kind of them, she decides. Pointless, but kind. Maybe when this current crisis is through she might gain a little more patience for the concept of pointless kindness.

Echo and Raven bring up the rear, because that's what the truly useful people do in any group, she's pretty sure.

"We should all head back to our place to decide what to do." Clarke announces, when they are approaching the outskirts of the village.

"Right. Your place. Where your teenage daughter is trying to sleep and you haven't got the equipment to analyse the data Echo brought back." Raven criticises Clarke's plan as only Raven can.

"Raven -" Bellamy turns to her with a disappointed frown.

"No, she's right." Clarke concedes. "It does make sense. I'm sorry – I'm used to doing things my own way, these days. I should remember to ask you to help more often, Raven."

Raven ducks her head, lacking her usual brash air. "I should remember you saved my life more often."

Clarke's mouth twists into a sad frown. "Can we save the world first, and argue over which of us has screwed up more often later?"

Raven laughs at that – which was presumably Clarke's intention – and Echo breathes a sigh of relief. She may be an ice-cold spy, but she doesn't like to watch people she likes and respects upset each other.

Well, then. It seems that Clarke has officially joined the list of people she likes. That's an unexpected development.

They arrive back at the village and everyone troops into the workshop. Octavia looks about her with a strange mix of curiosity and judgement, Echo thinks. Or maybe that's just her resentment talking – her resentment at being on the end of such a bad mood from someone she chose to save.

There's no point worrying about it. She didn't exactly have much choice, anyway. Bellamy is family, so his sister is family too.

Clarke calls the meeting to attention, for all that this is not her home.

"Octavia, how about you tell us what happened to you?"

"I was kidnapped. Taken to a white room, where they put goggles on me and planted information in my brain. I knew the way back here, for example." Octavia recites dispassionately.

Bellamy, of course, is not unmoved. "But you're OK? They didn't hurt you?"

"I think they had a bigger plan. The route back here was the first thing they planted. They didn't get much further. I think – Echo got me out of there before they could finish the job." She pauses, looks Echo right in the eye. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." It's half way to a lie – she really doesn't feel all that gracious about it at all – but it's hardly the worst deception of her life.

"Thanks." Bellamy echoes. "You _sure_ you're OK?"

"I'm fine. We need to work out what happens next."

"The people that took you could come back through the anomaly and try again." Clarke suggests what they are all thinking.

"Echo and Indra and Miller have that under control." Raven says with a shrug. Echo doesn't mind the shrug, somehow – it doesn't feel like her friend is belittling her role, rather that she has such implicit confidence in her ability to keep Sanctum safe that it is hardly worth discussing.

"You're more worried about the technical side of things." Clarke realises.

Raven nods. "Yeah. I need to read all this data Echo brought back and find us a safe home to move to."

"Great. We can take care of the political situation." Clarke suggests. "We'll make sure everyone's ready to move by the time you find us a home."

"And you'll be ready to negotiate if my kidnappers come calling?" Octavia suggests, brow quirked.

"We're always ready to negotiate." Bellamy says on a sigh.

Echo has to admit it – Bellamy and Clarke do seem to find themselves negotiating a lot, in her experience.

…...

It has been a strange couple of days since Echo got back from her trip to the anomaly. She feels like she ought to be busy, helping Raven to find them a solution to the oncoming impact with the neighbouring planet, but somehow she hasn't had an awful lot to do.

The army has been on high alert since she got a chance to brief Miller and Indra about Octavia's mysterious kidnappers, but they have not managed to find anyone to fight yet. She knows that Clarke has been busy trying to work out the medical side of Octavia's experience as well as the political, but again, that has not actually given Echo anything to do.

She is not made for idleness, so she has made herself a full-time occupation out of loitering in the workshop in case Raven needs help.

"Can I get you anything?" She asks, as she has asked at least eight times a day since she got back.

"You're my roommate, not my butler." Raven bursts out, exasperated.

"What's a butler?"

"They have them in old Earth comedies. It's a person who makes a fuss like you're doing right now, as far as I can tell." Raven fixes her with a glare.

"Sorry."

Raven sighs. "Don't apologise. I'm sorry for getting annoyed. I just – this is frustrating. And I don't need you to fetch and carry for me. I need you to just be here, be my friend, and hang out with me this evening when I'm done for the day and trying to unwind."

Echo thinks she can do that. It's not exactly a covert mission on enemy soil, but it is, at least, a task, with clearly defined expectations and requirements.

She therefore sits on a stool, and tries to look sympathetic. "Want to tell me what's frustrating about it?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Tell me anyway. And then I'll go get us some supper, and then we're playing cards for the rest of the evening."

"I haven't got time to play cards."

"You just told me my job is to help you relax in the evening. We're playing cards."

Raven stops, and looks her right in the eyes, and breaks into a stunningly genuine smile. "Thanks, Echo. You're right. Supper and cards sounds lovely."

Sure enough, Echo doesn't understand any of the physics Raven goes on to rant about. But she understands everything else – the frustration, the desperate need to be useful, the fear of not being good enough to save her people.

In fact, she thinks she might understand Raven better than she has ever understood anyone before.

…...

Raven does figure out most of the mystery in time to save her people, as it turns out, and Echo is proud of her for that.

Now it's her turn to step up and play her part.

"Someone needs to go in and check which of these planets is suitable for us to relocate to." Raven explains. "I've managed to map the anomaly, more or less, so you shouldn't get so lost this time as long as you take all the right equipment."

"How the hell did you manage to map _that_?" Echo cannot help but ask. She cannot imagine anyone being able to make sense of the tangle of ever-changing tunnels.

"By comparing the relative strengths of all the different signals at each point – radio waves, radiation, sound waves, that kind of thing. You were still recording when you ran right inside to get Octavia."

"I was?"

"Yeah. Happy accident – you've saved us another trip." Echo cannot remember ever having a _happy_ accident before, but she's not inclined to complain.

"But we need to go back in anyway?"

"Yes, to find out what's at each exit. We don't want to live where Octavia was taken, I'm guessing."

"Great. I'll leave in the morning." Echo decides, and reaches for her pack.

Raven stops her with a hand on her wrist. "You can't just decide it like that! It's, what, twenty seconds since I told you someone needs to go in there? And you're already packing your bag."

"Who else is it going to be?" Echo asks, bemused. "I was the right person last time. Why would that have changed?"

Raven swallows, and looks down. "I think this would be safer as a two or three person mission. You're going to be in there a while, and you might face hostiles on the other planets."

Echo nods, and keeps packing her bag. She does this not because she actually wants to ignore Raven, but because she needs a moment to collect herself, a moment to rise above the rising tide of anxiety stewing in her stomach.

She knows who the second member of her team will be. It's obvious – there is only one other person on this moon with such experience of risky missions in hostile territory, and he happens to be at the peak of physical fitness and skilled with a range of weapons, too.

Suddenly, going into the anomaly alone doesn't sound quite so dangerous after all.

…...

Echo tries to convince Raven, and Bellamy – and Miller and Indra and Clarke and the countless other people who seem to think they have any right to have an opinion on the matter – that she would be perfectly fine going in search of their next planet alone. But she fails, so the following morning, she finds herself walking into the anomaly alongside her ex-boyfriend.

"This doesn't have to be awkward." Bellamy says, as the woods of Sanctum fade away. "We're still friends, remember."

"It's not awkwardness I'm worried about." She tells him, short. It is almost the truth. "I'm worried about you dying."

"I don't plan on dying."

"People mostly don't. But you might not get much say in it if we run into the people who kidnapped your sister."

He sighs. "I can take care of myself, Echo. You don't need to worry about me any more."

"I'm not worrying about you because of... what we used to be. I'm worried because you're still my family. And because Clarke scares me, and I don't want to see what she'd do to me if I let anything happen to you." He snorts at that.

"You're right. She'd slap you, and it'd hurt - I would know. Now stop worrying and turn left." He indicates a path by gesturing with the datapad that serves as their map.

She follows him, and the subject is dropped.

They manage quite well, for the rest of the day, considering they are one skyperson and one grounder stumbling round a technological marvel. They manage well, too, with the fact they were in a relationship for a hundred and twenty-eight years and are now trying to work together to save the human race. Echo stands by her conviction that Bellamy loves her a hell of a lot more, now, as a sister or friend or even a frightening eccentric aunt than he ever did as a girlfriend.

"You're breathing too loud." She accuses him cheerfully, about six hours in.

"Breathing too loud?" He repeats, incredulous.

"Yeah. You've always been a loud breather."

"Are you teasing me?" He sounds absolutely flabbergasted by the idea, and she cannot blame him. Teasing has not ever been her specialism, beyond the occasional cynical barbed comment.

"Yeah. I've spent too much time with with Raven. But you really do breathe too loud to be a spy. Come on, according to the map, there's something just around this corner."

Sure enough, there is. There is not just something, but an exit onto a planet crowded with greenery and bathed in light.

"This looks promising." Bellamy says, frowning out at it.

"Not going to walk straight out there this time? Clarke's taught you well." It stings a little to say her name like that, and most of all to acknowledge that Clarke has had more luck talking some sense into him than she ever had, but she can cope with it.

"It looks a lot like Earth."

"But with two suns, look." She steps out of the anomaly once and for all, and gestures up at the sky.

"We should move away from here and take those readings Raven needs."

Echo nods. "And we should stay the night. It seems quiet here and we've got a lot more planets to map. Who knows when we'll have a safe campsite again?"

"No way. We sleep when we have to, but not before. I want to get home to Clarke and Madi."

She rises above it, stands tall and looks him in the eye. "You'll never get home to them if you're too tired to think straight and you make a mistake. We're camping here, and that's that."

She expects an argument. But apparently playing on his desperate need to get home to his new family is an effective way to manipulate him, she notes, as he simply nods, jaw clenched firm, and moves away, muttering something about gathering firewood.

She starts to set up the instruments while he does so. She's getting the hang of this, now, days in Raven's company teaching her a little at a time about the world of tech. She sets up something of a campsite for them, too, choosing a sheltered spot and creating a fire pit ready for Bellamy's return. Back when she was working for Azgeda, she would have done a more thorough survey of the area, she thinks. She would have looked at every last beetle as she tried to determine whether the campsite was safe. But she's changed, since then, and is more inclined to trust her instincts. It is too quiet here for there to be hostile people around, and the wildlife moves with a confidence that suggests humans are a rare sight.

With that thought in mind, she goes to catch them some dinner. She finds a furry creature, about the size of a small dog, and dispatches it with one well-placed arrow. There is no point in wasting bullets on supper.

By the time she gets back to the campsite, Bellamy has a fire going, and is sitting next to it, gaze fixed on a piece of paper in his hands. He doesn't notice her approach, as she walks on light feet and breathes quietly – she is, after all, a rather more apt spy than he could ever be.

The picture is a sketch of him with Clarke and Madi – of course it is. She supposes that Clarke drew it, the soft charcoal lines bringing together a heartfelt family portrait.

Echo sighs, and squares her shoulders, and makes an attempt to talk to him about it. This kind of conversation doesn't come easily to her, but he's her friend, now, and she doesn't want to watch him stew in lonely sadness.

"It's OK, Bellamy. I know you're annoyed I insisted we camp here, but I promise we'll get you home soon."

He jumps, and rolls the sketch back up carefully before stashing it safely in his pocket. "I know. I'm sorry I tried to argue, you're right. It's the smart move. I just miss them so badly already. I feel like – I missed so many years with them, why do I have to miss more time?"

"I didn't want you to come." She reminds him, resenting him somewhat. What right does he have to complain like that to her? She takes a calming breath, and reminds herself that she only wants the best for him.

She needs to rise above it, but that's proving to be a challenge right now. It's not that she's struggling with the end of their relationship, any more, so much as she's struggling with Bellamy deciding to be a self-sacrificing fool but then moaning about it.

Then again, he never was one to think things through.

"I know. I didn't mean it like that – I _did_ want to come, because it was the right thing to do." He offers.

She snorts, and starts skinning their dinner.

Bellamy starts speaking again, in a more conciliatory tone. "You're right, we'll be home soon. How are you liking living with Raven? Looking forward to getting back to the workshop?"

Now that is a more promising topic of conversation. "I love it." She says, with more conviction than she thinks she has ever loved anything in her life, as far as she can remember.

"Yeah?" Bellamy sounds almost surprised, and she's a little offended by that.

"It's great. She's teaching me a bit about all this tech, but she doesn't expect me to suddenly become another Emori, you know? And we play cards in the evenings. And I guess we joke around more than I thought we would." It is only half of what she loves about having a true home at last, but she doesn't quite know how else to explain it.

"I knew she'd love having you around, but I didn't know you'd like it so much."

"What do you mean?"

Bellamy leans back on his hands, a thoughtful expression about his lips. "You're good for her. She's always being left, if you look back at everything that's happened to her, with her mum and Finn and even Shaw and Abby. I know she's always liked how she can rely on you."

Echo frowns. That's news to her. She remembers being certain that Raven didn't like her all that much, just a few short weeks ago. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah. Whenever you argued, or she lashed out at you, you always came back again. I remember when you and I first got together, Raven was there telling me I was lucky I'd found someone so loyal."

She snorts. "Not that it did us much good."

"Things change." Bellamy agrees. "I'm happy to hear that you moving to the workshop has been a change for the better."

"Yeah." Echo swallows, has a go at the kind of emotional intimacy she knows is supposed to be a feature of friendship. "If I'm helping Raven, that's great. But I love living there for selfish reasons. I like having someone around who likes and respects me for who I am. I like living with someone who genuinely seems to enjoy my company."

"Then I'm really happy for you." Bellamy says, and she believes it is the truth.

There is a comfortable silence as she finishes preparing their dinner. Bellamy goes to refill their water at one point, and Echo watches him go with a thoughtful frown. She can still see that he's aesthetically pleasing, on an objective level. And he's definitely good company – they've spoken more today than she thinks they did in the entire last week of their relationship, and probably with more laughter along the way, too. But she no longer feels that stab of possessive desire when she looks at him, just the comfortable warmth that comes with considering him family.

Now she comes to think about it, she can barely remember a time when she did feel anything romantic for him.

Just as soon as she's stopped being frustrated with his infuriating combination of martyrdom and insensitivity, she thinks she might manage to rise above all this quite successfully after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry it's been such a long time. I found it difficult to work on this story while watching the new season because I don't enjoy the way Echo has been written in parts of it (particularly eps 4 and 5). I ended up writing a couple of other Echo-centric episode AUs to vent my frustrations, which you might want to go check out if you're short of things to read.
> 
> Thanks to Stormkpr for betaing this as always. Happy reading!

Echo manages to convince herself that this mission in the anomaly with Bellamy is a mission like any other, more or less, in the days that follow. Sure, the green paths of light seem to shift all the time and are navigable only with the datapad Raven provided. And yeah, fair enough, she's never had an ex-boyfriend by her side in the field before. But for the most part, the work is familiar, even if the context is not. It's simply a matter of scouting as discreetly as possible whilst staying out of trouble.

They're pretty lucky on that front. At one point Echo has to shoot some big furry thing that seems to be a predator and has taken slightly too close of an interest in Bellamy. There's another planet where the rain burns like acid, and Bellamy has a chem tent set up before Echo has even had chance to collect her wits.

They're a decent team, it turns out, when they're not preoccupied by trying to sustain a dysfunctional relationship.

Their work is about half done, now. They have been camped on an inoffensive bit of scrub land overnight and are now heading back into the anomaly. There are still hallucinations to face each and every time they enter the green mist, of course, but they don't tend to cause them much trouble. Bellamy seems less distracted by seeing Clarke now that he actually gets to love her openly in real life, and Echo is used to brushing aside the way that the Raven she hallucinates compliments her so proudly.

Only today something is different.

“I love living with you, too.” Raven says, voice warm.

It's the silliest thing. Echo knows it's not real, knows she just needs to hold tight to her self control and rise above the temptation to dwell on Raven's words. Self control has always been her particular talent, so that really shouldn't be a problem.

Only no one's ever told her they love living with her before.

No. She's being ridiculous. She must ignore Raven and keep walking. It's not as if she's even saying she loves _her_ , or anything so very meaningful – so they're a good match as roommates, and Echo likes to feel appreciated. That's really not worth losing her head over.

“Echo?” Bellamy's voice interrupts her increasingly deranged train of thought.

“Bellamy. Yes. Hey.” She gathers her wits, forces herself to put one foot in front of the other. “Sorry. My hallucination must have changed. It just caught me by surprise, is all.”

She's not sure whether holding her breath will help, but she tries it anyway as she navigates the last few footsteps into the tunnel of light. Does the toxin enter the body through breath? Or is she soaking it up through pores in her skin? She really must remember to ask Raven useful questions like that.

No. No, she mustn't think about Raven just now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Bellamy asks softly, when they're safely inside and walking through the green maze.

“Talk about it?” She repeats, sharp.

“Yeah. That's a thing friends sometimes do, Echo – invite you to talk about what's on your mind?” He frowns a little. “I guess – I've never really seen you taken aback like that. It made me think maybe it would do you good to talk about whatever it was.”

She genuinely does consider it, but only for a moment. Her friendship with Bellamy may be stronger than ever, but even so, she is not ready to invite him to take a good look at her moment of weakness.

No, she's pretty sure the only person she would ever dream of discussing this development with is Raven herself.

…....

They've explored a varied range of planets, these last few days, from dense forest to dry desert and everything in between.

This is the first time they have exited the anomaly to see clear evidence of human habitation, though. They stumble into a large room of grey concrete. There's something eerily familiar about it, Echo thinks, despite the fact she could swear she has never been here in her life.

Bellamy seems even more convinced he knows the place.

“Is this -?” He asks, urgent, running to the door.

She doesn't know whether it is, because he didn't finish his question. He really is exasperating sometimes, this man. All the same, she pastes a patient expression onto her face and follows him as he unlatches the door and steps out into the hallway.

She leaves the door propped open behind them. She figures that a clear escape route is probably a useful thing, and Bellamy seems too excited to consider such details.

He moves ever more quickly as they make progress down the corridor, apparently increasingly convinced of whatever it was he was asking earlier. It isn't until they round the second corner that Echo works it out, and she finds herself a little ashamed of her slowness.

This is the bunker. That is – it's the old Second Dawn bunker, the one beneath Polis that saved the human race from the second Praimfaya and turned Octavia into Blodreina.

Well, now. That's an unexpected development.

She figures that's why it took her so long to work it out – she just wasn't expecting to end up here today. And in her defence, she's barely spent any time here at all, seeing as Octavia banished her and all.

“Bellamy, stop.” She advises, once she has her bearings. “There's no point just running around the place.”

He nods. “You agree with me, then? This is really it?”

“Yeah. Unless there are two bunkers in the universe with the same slogan.” She says, attempting a little of that cynical humour she has learnt to embrace since moving in with Raven.

Bellamy looks confused by her attempt to joke, and moves on to talk about logistics. “So I guess the mission's the same. We go up topside and take the readings?”

“You said it takes two people to work the door? You take the computer and I'll take the hatch.”

“I should -”

“You shouldn't. I'm the spy, remember? Anything could be happening up there.”

“Echo -”

“If I'm not back in ten minutes you run for the anomaly and you go home to Clarke and Madi.” She tells him firmly. “You were going on about how much you miss them last night, remember that? You remember how much they need you to come home?”

“You can't keep doing that, Echo – manipulating me into letting you go into danger.”

She smiles, a cold, dangerous grin that she's perfected over the years. “It's what I do.” She says, because it's the truth. She's not here to play fair. She's here to protect Bellamy and get the job done, and that's that.

With that, she starts heading for the door without waiting to see whether Bellamy has gone the right way for the computer. She knows him well enough, after all these years, to know that he knows when he's beaten. Sure, he'll seethe about it for a while – possibly even hold it against her – but if it keeps him safe and they manage to do what they came here for, that's fine with her.

She is struck by something, when she reaches the big round atrium that she remembers Blodreina using as the fighting pit. It's clean – absolutely spotless, not a trace of blood anywhere. And the metal grilling that used to make a cage about the pit is gone, too.

In that case, she figures, they have not ended up here at the same time they left it, before cryosleep. Either the anomaly has taken them straight across to the present, in which case another race of people have evidently been here and done some serious cleaning in the last century, or the anomaly has somehow taken them back in time to before Octavia painted the walls that particularly grim shade of red. Echo may not know much at all about physics, but after all Raven's chat about _space-time being bent out of shape_ , she doesn't see why this anomaly shouldn't be able to take them to different times as well as different places. She laughs at herself a little for that thought – she suspects it's a whole lot more complicated than that. She wonders whether Raven will be able to work out what exactly is going on.

She opens the door without difficulty and heads outside. She gets a few answers as she does so – the temple is still standing, so this must be before the Praimfaya she remembers. It doesn't seem plausible that anyone would have done such a perfect job of rebuilding the temple in between. It's not just the building itself, either – the artwork on the walls is as she remembers, more or less. There are perhaps slightly fewer pictures, she notes. These are all the kinds of physical details she might include when she reports on the mission, back in Sanctum.

It's strange to be back on Earth, but she doesn't allow herself to dwell on it. She focuses instead on taking the measurements Raven requires as carefully as possible. She can't afford to be overcome by the emotion of returning to the planet she somehow still considers home, even though she's not been here in decades. And she certainly cannot afford to wallow in sadness at remembering all the things that have gone wrong for her in Polis – being cast out many times over, realising that Bellamy was still in love with Clarke, and everything in between.

She finishes with her task, and climbs back down the ladder. She needs to get back to Bellamy and take all this data home.

And yet somehow, she finds that she pauses, just for a moment, just as her head is on the point of ducking beneath the ceiling of the bunker. She takes a second to peer around the temple, to take in the artwork – somehow familiar yet strange – and just breathe in a generous lungful of Earth air.

The Earth still smells the same.

That's a silly thought, and she has no patience for silly thoughts. With that decided, she finishes descending the stairs and shuts the door soundly behind her.

…....

The return to Sanctum is much as Echo expected. No one is waiting for them as they exit the anomaly, because they've been gone a few days, presumably, with no way of anyone knowing when they would be back. So it is that she and Bellamy head back to the village in an atmosphere rather more cheerful than when they last walked this way side by side on the day they broke up.

“We did good, huh?” Bellamy sounds happy, she thinks, and she's glad to hear it.

“I hope so. We won't know until Raven has analysed the numbers.” She reminds him, rather more prone to caution than he is.

“Yeah. I get that. But I mean – it went OK, didn't it? Thanks for having my back with that bear thing the other day.”

She nods, tries for a small smile. “You're welcome. Thanks for looking out for me, too.”

They don't chat much, as they cover the last few minutes' walk to the village. They've talked plenty, these last few days, and now there is nothing much to say as they pass the time in comfortable silence.

There are people looking out for them at the edge of the village. That becomes obvious, when a great shout goes up, and all at once Clarke and Madi are running out of their home and throwing themselves at Bellamy in an enthusiastic hug.

It makes Echo jealous, just for a moment, just as she grapples with her self control and reminds herself to take deep breaths and rise above that unworthy emotion. It's not like she wants kids anyway – the whole man, woman and child thing has never done much for her. So it's not like she really has anything to envy, as she watches Bellamy hug his picture perfect little nuclear family.

But it's that idea of _belonging_ , a little voice whispers in her ear. She's not felt that way, truly, since Roan cast her out. Sure, Spacekru are her family, but more by convenience than because they actually chose her.

Her jealousy subsides, rather abruptly, as Raven emerges from the workshop and engulfs her in a hug. That reminds her, better than anything, that there might be somewhere she belongs after all – or perhaps somewhere she _will_ belong, one day, when it's all a bit less new.

And apart from anything else, Raven gives really great hugs – sort of warm and fierce, and there's this distinctive smell that lingers on her hair which Echo likes more than she probably should, given their status as platonic roommates and all.

“You're home.” Raven murmurs, somewhere near her ear. Raven's a smart woman, and that doesn't seem like a terribly sophisticated observation, but Echo decides she can let that go, given the context.

“Yeah. All good. You'll never guess – one of the exits leads to Earth, back before the second Praimfaya.”

Raven pulls back from the hug at that, eyes bright. “Really? You're sure?”

“Positive. The anomaly entrance is in the Polis bunker, I could see the temple when I went up top.”

“That could be really good news.” Raven says, somewhere between excited and relieved. “Thanks, Echo. Let's call together a meeting and see what we've got. There's a lot to catch you up on here, too.”

With that, Raven sets about doing what Raven does best – barking instructions at Gabriel, encouraging Clarke and Bellamy and Madi to maybe break it up and save the human race first, and finish hugging later. Within minutes everyone who is anyone in Sanctum is crowding into the workshop. As ever, Echo's not entirely sure why Murphy is here, but after all those years on the Ring she's basically grown used to having him around even if they are not exactly the closest of friends, just yet.

Indra starts things off, reporting on a battle that happened in the woods two days ago. That has Echo gasping in shock, for all that she likes to think she is difficult to take by surprise. She can't believe that she wasn't told about this the second she entered the village.

She can't believe she wasn't here to fight.

She forces her thoughts away from guilt and back to what Indra is saying. A detachment of troops entered through the anomaly. The combined forces of Sanctum and Wonkru were more than able to subdue them. They took hostages and were therefore able to negotiate the return of Diyoza and her daughter Hope.

In other words, while Echo was off smelling Earth air like a sentimental fool, other people were engaging the enemy back here. In essence, she seethes, she left Indra to do her duty for her.

Clarke takes over, then, explaining that she was able to learn rather more about the political situation by using the hostages as leverage. The troops were followers of Bill Cadogan, and his scientists are responsible for the experiments with space-time that have given rise to the anomaly – as well as the imminent threat of collision with the neighbouring planet.

“Minor battle, successful negotiation, Cadogan's not our friend.” Bellamy summarises, with that ill-timed humour Echo always used to find a little annoying, now she comes to think of it.

“Exactly.” Clarke agrees, sending him a sickening smile.

“Our big news is that we found Earth.” Bellamy offers. “Echo, you went up topside. Want to tell us more about it?”

“You already said most of it. Earth before the second Praimfaya – we came out in the Polis bunker and then out into the temple.”

“I'm just looking at the numbers now.” Raven adds, frowning. “It must have been soon after the first apocalypse. The radiation numbers are on the high side.”

“They are?” Echo wonders aloud. She felt fine.

“Yeah. Nightbloods only, I would say. Looks like we have to thank the Primes for something after all.” Raven suggests with a wry grin.

Echo nods. She never expected to be grateful to the Primes for anything much, but if that nightblood transfusion is the reason she survived her brief breather on Earth then that's something.

“But that could be a viable home for us – we can make everyone nightbloods.” Clarke suggests.

Raven nods. “I'll need to look into it, but it's looking good.”

“We should move quickly.” Indra recommends. “Cadogan might send more troops.”

Raven's nod is a little more brisk, this time. “I'll look into it.” She repeats, short.

As ever, Clarke swans in to save the situation. “Let's leave Raven to it.” She suggests. “Is there anything we can do to help, or do you want us out of your way?”

“I've got Echo.” Raven says, as if that answers anything.

With that, everyone starts to traipse back out of their living space. Echo doesn't wait for them to leave before she gets to work – she needs to unpack all the instruments she and Bellamy brought back with them, and then she needs to find supper for herself and Raven. And then she needs to convince Raven to take a break to eat supper, which is sometimes easier said than done.

She also needs to keep busy – she doesn't mind admitting it. If she stops for so much as a second, she knows she'll end up stewing on the fact a battle happened in her absence.

She's already half way through clearing a space on the table to put their supper down once she fetches it when Raven speaks.

“It's not your fault.” Is all she says.

“What?” Echo looks up, sharp.

“You're annoyed that there was fighting while you were gone. You have this stupid concept of duty, you think you're supposed to put your life on the line for your people all of the time.” Raven stops, swallows, and starts speaking again more slowly. “Not everything is your problem, Echo. You did good here – the information you gathered will find us a new home. Indra and Miller had everything under control here.”

“You can talk.” Echo snaps. “Gabriel knows things about the anomaly. There's that guy – James, is it? - you have watching the reactor. Emori's great at all this stuff. You're not the only person in Sanctum capable of losing sleep to fix this problem.”

Raven doesn't bristle at that, to Echo's surprise. She merely nods. “I know. I've asked Emori to take a look at a couple of things for me. And I've got you to help with the rest of it, haven't I?”

Hmm. That's not quite what Echo had in mind, but she supposes it's better than watching Raven work herself into the ground.

They work in silence for a few moments. It's nice. It's sort of warm, and companionable, and it really does feel an awful lot like _belonging_.

Maybe that's what makes Echo break the habit of a lifetime, and show the world what's really going on beneath that poker face. Well, not the world – just Raven, one wonderful woman who seems to be quickly coming to mean the world to her.

“It wasn't just about _doing my duty_.” She mutters, knowing that Raven will know they're still talking about missing the battle. “Fighting is what I do. It's _who I am_. And if I keep missing battles, and if Indra and Miller can manage just fine without me, then who am I?”

“You're Echo.” Raven says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. “You're a fun roommate, and a loyal friend, and none of that has anything to do with fighting.”

Echo lets that sink in for a moment. Raven's tone suggests that she means it, but it's going to take her a while to process the idea that she's not just a killing machine.

Raven continues. “I know what you mean though. There have been times when I've wondered who I am outside of engineering. I – I don't know how much you know about the time before Praimfaya, when I nearly floated myself.”

“Not much.” Echo admits, cautious.

“My brain was dying, and I thought I was no one if I couldn't be a brilliant engineer.” Raven says, with a shrug that is totally ill-suited to a discussion about nearly taking her own life, Echo thinks.

“You'll always be someone.” Echo assures her, fierce.

Raven nods, smiles a small smile. Echo reaches across to pull her into a brisk half a hug, fleeting but very much there. And then the two of them get back on with their tasks, because that's how things go, in this workshop. Life-changing conversations and everyday moments, hopelessly intertwined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the penultimate chapter! Huge thanks to everyone who has left encouraging comments on this story and to Stormkpr for betaing. If you're a fan of Clarke and Echo friendship beyond what we see here you might want to check out "Hukops ste iffi" which I posted at the weekend. Happy reading!

Things move quickly, in the days that follow. Raven analyses the data Echo and Bellamy brought back from their mission and concludes that Earth just after the bombs is indeed the best bet for their future home. She's a little worried about paradoxes, but decides that, on balance, with almost a century to play with no one is too likely to trip over their own timeline.

Echo wishes she understood what that even meant.

Clarke takes charge of the logistics of getting everyone ready for the move. This is a matter not just of packing, and having everyone ready to march at a moment's notice, but also of distributing the nightblood serum Jackson is producing, and of having Gaia assure the more conservative members of Wonkru that they are doing the right thing by accepting synthetic nightblood.

Occasionally Echo finds herself tempted to argue with Clarke on matters such as the schedule for injecting everyone with the nightblood. They both like to take charge of strategy, after all. But out of respect for Bellamy she controls that urge, because he presumably doesn't want to witness some kind of undignified cat fight.

OK, there's a little more to it than that. She has to admit that she's more a leader of armies than a solver of these kinds of problems. And she genuinely does have a healthy respect for Clarke in her own right, these days. More than that, she even enjoys her company from time to time, and finds that this newfound friendship is fast overtaking any lingering resentment at the end of her relationship with Bellamy.

It turns out it's good to have friends. Sure, the moon they live on is about to be destroyed and they're scrabbling to make ready for a rushed move to a radiation-soaked Earth, but for the first time in her life, Echo has people who choose to chill out in her company. Bellamy and Clarke always wave her over if they see her in the tavern, as do Murphy and Emori.

And then there's Raven.

No. She mustn't think too much about Raven. Her roommate is proving something of a distraction, these days.

So, yes – things move quickly as they prepare for the move. But things do not quite move quickly enough.

Echo is in the workshop when she gets the message.

"Movement in the woods." Bellamy's voice calls over the radio. "From the direction of the anomaly. A small troop of Cadogan's men – fifty or so. Get the guards here now."

Echo doesn't wait to be told twice. She missed the last skirmish, but she's determined to do her duty now. With barely a word of farewell to Raven she grabs her bow and sword, sticks a spare knife in her boot, and sets out to rally her troops.

The guard have been on high alert since the threat was first discovered, so it's the work of scarcely a moment to gather them and set out to find Bellamy. It turns out that his radio call was perfectly accurate – there's a small group of soldiers, just outside of the anomaly.

When Echo has arrived with the rest of the army, Bellamy steps up to her side.

"We should be fine. There aren't many of them." He says with conviction.

She snorts. If it were possible to win a war through sheer confidence, she has no doubt that Bellamy would triumph every time, with that weaponised optimism that is so typical of him. Personally, she's always found a bow more useful than a cocky attitude, but she supposes it adds to his charm.

Clarke definitely seems to think so, anyway. Echo's beginning to remember she always found this side of him a little exasperating.

"We're not taking any chances." She tells him smartly. "I'll get my archers and gunners to take up a sniping position on that high ground." She gestures off to the right.

He nods. "I'd better give them a chance to negotiate first."

With that, they take their detachments and get themselves organised. Miller and Indra take their places at the head of the army while Bellamy calls out an offer to Cadogan's men to negotiate.

He is answered with bullets, and so battle breaks out.

Echo adopts her usual strategy of securing a good vantage point and then using her bow. Cadogan's men have decent armour, but their faces and some of their necks are still exposed, so she is able to take many of them down.

She used to thrive on fighting like this, she remembers. Shooting from the shadows, picking troops off without them ever even knowing where the arrow is coming from. She used to find it satisfying to hit her mark, used to take pride in a job well done.

But today she finds that she isn't enjoying this much. In fact, she's beginning to wonder whether she ever genuinely enjoyed war, or whether she _thought_ she was supposed to enjoy it, just because she's good at it.

When she runs out of arrows, she steps forward with her sword. There aren't many of Cadogan's men left now, and she cannot help but wonder what their purpose was in coming here. After their last experience, surely they realise that fifty men will not take down Sanctum. Is there something more subtle going on here? Or is Cadogan just mounting a campaign to keep them stressed and distracted?

She doesn't know, and this isn't the time to work it out. This is the time for focusing on the movement of her sword, the enemies falling before her. This is -

This is a bullet, ripping through her shoulder, and her lips letting out a startled cry of pain.

…...

Clarke patches her up.

Echo supposes that makes perfect sense – Clarke has some medical training and plenty of experience of stitching people back together after wounds like this. But Echo hopes that it maybe also symbolises another advance in their friendship. After all, there are other doctors, and equally there are plenty of other important things Clarke could be doing right now.

"How long until I can handle a bow again?" Echo asks, naturally, the moment Clarke is through with dressing the wound.

Clarke frowns. "A while. Not this side of the trip back to Earth, that's for sure."

 _Rise above it_.

It's only a wound, only a few weeks or months. There's no need to fall apart over this, no need to show her emotions on her face.

And there's certainly no need to say anything.

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" She finds herself asking, quite against her better judgement. That's the thing about having these friends – she seems to be becoming rather more emotionally open, whether she likes it or not.

For the record, she does like it. Probably. Maybe. It's as if she _likes_ it, but she's still learning how to like it.

Clarke smiles, a surprisingly understanding sort of a look on her face. "You've already managed two missions into the anomaly and one minor battle in the last fortnight. Maybe take a break, Echo? Let your shoulder heal?"

Hmm. That doesn't sound like her. She can almost hear Nia reprimanding her for her laziness at the mere idea of it.

"I know you'll still be helping Raven." Clarke continues smoothly. "You don't need to be able to shoot to help her out in the workshop."

That's a more acceptable answer. She can deal with this. She can still be a loyal servant to her people, even if she needs to learn how to do that in a new way.

…...

Echo's a little confused, and that doesn't happen often. To the best of her knowledge, Raven has absolutely no medical training whatsoever. What Raven does have is a crisis to solve and a lot of urgent clever science problems to deal with before they can head back to Earth.

So why the hell does she insist on being the one to change Echo's dressing the following night?

"I can just ask Clarke to do it." Echo protests.

"No need. I got this. Let me take care of it for you." Raven says, waving a piece of gauze.

That's when Echo realises that planning was involved, here. Raven has organised this – she's gone and fetched the supplies from the med centre and everything. That's serious commitment to changing a dressing, and Echo doesn't quite know what to make of it.

"You've got more important things to do." She tries, half-hearted.

"Nothing's more important than this." Raven states firmly.

Echo admits defeat, then. She takes a seat and tries not to wince while Raven removes the old dressing and cleans the wound. She tries, too, to concentrate very firmly on the pattern of the floor tiles, or the list of tasks they still have to complete tonight.

She tries, in short, to concentrate on anything other than the smell that clings to Raven's hair as she leans close to her.

It's silly, she thinks. This... fascination she has with Raven is surely only a pathetic product of the fact that she's never really had a best friend before. There's nothing more to it than that.

Unless there is.

Unless somewhere along the line, wanting Raven to respect her more, and noticing that her friend is objectively attractive, might have morphed into something a little more complex.

"You OK? I'm not hurting you?" Raven asks softly as she works. Echo can't help noticing that it's a particular tone of voice she's never heard Raven use with anyone else.

"No." Echo barely breathes her response.

She can't let this attraction get the better of her. She needs to get a grip, needs to maintain her precious self-control. She needs to rise above it, and not ruin the best friendship she has ever known.

And yet there's a soft but persistent voice in her mind demanding that she needs to find out whether there's any chance Raven could be attracted to her, too.

Soft but persistent – a bit like Raven herself, in this moment.

…...

Echo is practising the art of still being useful with a hole in her shoulder. She fetches and carries for Raven, but at approximately half the speed she used to fetch and carry at with two working shoulders. She consults with Indra and Miller on matters of military strategy, and even occasionally finds herself taking food to Jackson and Clarke in the nightblood lab and reminding them to eat.

Most of all, she finds herself sitting around the workshop trying to offer Raven moral support. The only problem is, that's becoming less and less of a job with each hour that passes. Raven has more or less worked out the technical aspects of their move, now, and they are waiting for the nightblood to be distributed before they can progress any further. Sometimes they pass the time by playing a card game together.

But tonight, Echo is under strict orders to go out.

"Go hang out in the tavern or something." Raven insists. "You've been doing everything round here and you deserve a break."

"So do you." Echo responds, a bit annoyed, really.

"I'll take a break once we're back on Earth." Raven waves a dismissive hand.

Echo sighs. "I don't want to go to the tavern. I'd rather hang out here with you. We could play cards?"

"We can't play cards. Gabriel's coming over."

Oh. Well, then. Now Echo feels a bit of a fool. Looks like that time she spent trying to figure out whether she had a crush on this new best friend of hers was time wasted.

It's typical, she thinks sadly. She should have known it by now – she saw exactly the same thing happen with Shaw. Raven finds herself a clever guy who understands all the technology she loves so much, and doesn't give Echo a moment's thought.

"Echo?" Raven prompts, concern in her voice.

Echo tries to gather her thoughts. "Yeah, sure. Of course. I'll go out and give you guys some privacy. Do you – do you want me to find somewhere else to sleep tonight?" Goodness only knows where she would go – all the rest of her friends are happily coupled up and would presumably want some privacy, too.

Raven is looking at her very strangely. "He's only coming over to check my calculations. I'm pretty sure he'll be gone within the hour. I just wanted you to take a break."

"Oh. Sorry. I thought -" For the first time in her life, Echo finds herself incoherent. So much for her composure.

Raven laughs, a little nervously, Echo thinks. "No. No, it's definitely not like that. I think he's with Octavia." A swallow. "And I don't think I'd be interested anyway."

"OK. Great. Well I'll just – I guess I'll head to the tavern."

"Great."

There's a moment's pause. Echo gathers her courage.

"Can we maybe play cards when I get back?" She asks.

Raven's face lights up in a smile. "I'd like that."

Echo cautions herself not to get too excited, as she walks to the tavern. Just because Raven isn't interested in Gabriel doesn't mean she's interested in her. But for once in her life, Echo finds that her emotions are in danger of running away with her. She's never known overt approval and a feeling of belonging quite like she finds in living with Raven. And she's never known butterflies in her stomach quite like she gets from Raven's smile, either.

Just for once in her life, she's beginning to dare to hope that someone might choose her on her own merits.

When she sees Bellamy in the tavern, she grabs a drink and then walks over to join him without hesitation. They're getting on really well, these days. She wants to say he's like a brother to her, but that's not quite true. And it's nothing like the relationship she had with Roan, odd mix of clan loyalty and attraction that was unhealthy and unbalanced where she only ever seemed to do the wrong thing. The sad thing is, that the relationship she has with this ex is probably the healthiest relationship she's ever had in her life apart from her newfound friendship with Raven.

And the saddest thing of all? His new partner is well on the way to becoming her good friend.

"Echo. Hey." Bellamy greets her with enthusiasm, pulls out a chair. "Can I get you a drink?"

"I've got one already." She gestures with her glass.

He nods. "Thanks for helping Clarke out this morning. I owe you one."

She waves a hand. "You don't owe me anything. Family, remember?"

"OK. But thanks, anyway. It's good to know you've got my back."

"You love me more for having your back since we broke up than you ever loved me while we were together." She tells him – a statement, not a question.

"Yeah. I guess that makes me a pretty shitty boyfriend." He offers apologetically.

"Clarke doesn't seem to be complaining." He's used to her occasional attempts at cynical humour, now, so he laughs a little instead of looking surprised.

"You know, talking to friends about relationships is a thing." He says, tone rather too deliberately casual, she thinks, as he toys with a coaster.

She narrows her eyes at him. "What are you getting at?"

"How's Raven?" He asks her, smirking slightly.

Echo hesitates. She's not in the habit of trusting people with her heart. But she does trust Bellamy with most other things, and she figures he could be a useful source of information, here.

She steels her courage, comes right out and says it. "Do you know if she likes women?"

Bellamy meets her gaze head on. "I don't know for certain. She doesn't talk about her feelings a lot – you must know that even better than I do. But I've heard rumours about her and Luna back before Praimfaya. And – I mean, there's you, now."

"And does she like people who aren't engineers?" Echo asks, feeling rather small. Honestly, she figures that the odds of Raven being into women are far higher than the odds of her being into former spies.

"Finn wasn't an engineer." Bellamy offers. "But he wasn't much like you, either."

It's at that point that Clarke walks in, greets Bellamy with a small wave and goes to fetch herself a drink before joining them at the table. Echo finds the relationship between these two rather fascinating, now she's got used to it. They're not like Murphy and Emori who have to kiss every time they enter a room. But there's something about the warmth in their gazes and the way they casually invade each other's personal space that has Echo wondering how she ever thought Bellamy loved her at all.

Maybe that's why Clarke doesn't even bother being suspicious of the fact that Bellamy and Echo have remained close friends. Now she's taken a seat at the table, she wastes no time in asking what she's missed.

"Everything OK? What's going on?" She asks.

Echo hesitates. The woman she used to be even a fortnight ago would never have so much as contemplated bringing Clarke into this. But she's learnt in that time that sometimes being trusting and giving other people a chance pays off. That not everyone is as heartless as the queen she was raised to serve.

"I was asking Bellamy about Raven's type." She mutters, face carefully controlled.

Clarke, of course, catches on all too well. "You're asking the wrong question, Echo. It's not about having a type. Look at me as an example – what do Finn and Lexa and Bellamy have in common except having their heart in the right place? Her history doesn't matter, it's about whether she's interested in you now."

Echo considers that for a moment, tries to digest Clarke's words. It goes back to the age-old problem, she thinks – her internal conviction that no one would choose her for who she is herself. That she only has value as one of her type or kind – a spy, or Azgeda, or occasionally a workshop assistant.

Clarke adds one more point. "Anyway, she cares about you too much to let it be awkward if she doesn't have romantic feelings for you. You're safe to just say something."

"You're a hypocrite, Clarke Griffin." Echo informs her without heat.

"What do you mean?"

She gestures to where Bellamy sits with his arm slung about Clarke's shoulders. "You knew Bellamy cared about you too much to let it be awkward and you still went a hundred and thirty one years without doing anything about it."

Echo's not sure when she started making jokes with Clarke. Still less can she work out when she gained the talent of making Bellamy laugh. But as they sit around and giggle at their shared romantic ineptitude, she decides she rather likes it.

All this friendship and laughter and openness is having an interesting effect. She's always had a great deal of faith in her ability to shoot straight or fight a battle. Yet all her life she's been short when it comes to personal confidence and self esteem.

But right now? She can feel her confidence level rising through the roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the final chapter! Huge thanks to everyone who stuck with me and to Stormkpr for betaing every word. With Bellamy's death and Echo's bizarre disappearance from the script and Clarke's sudden character change, I hope this happy ending to their story at least helps a little. Happy reading!

Just when they think they are ready for the move back to Earth, they stumble across one last problem. Echo isn't even surprised by this – finding one last problem just around every corner is basically a fact of life, as far as she can see.

Raven explains the situation to a small and seemingly random group of the people who matter round here. Indra is here, while Miller is out taking charge of the warriors. Clarke is here, while Bellamy watches over Madi. Emori is here, and for some reason Murphy is hanging around too. Sometimes Echo finds herself wondering if they might try for a more organised system of governance when they get back to Earth. Azgeda had many drawbacks to put it mildly, but at least the chain of command was clear.

"The problem is that we need to close up the anomaly behind us." Raven announces. "We want to keep Cadogan and his men from following us back to Earth."

Clarke nods, all briskness and business as usual. "OK. So how do we do that?"

Raven frowns. "The easy answer is for someone to stay behind here, but obviously -"

"I'll do it." Echo announces.

There's a stunned silence. Murphy is frowning deeply. Even Indra looks more displeased than normal.

Then Raven speaks. "No way, Echo. Absolutely not. If you think for one minute I'm letting you throw your life away like that -" She splutters to a halt, fire in her eyes.

Echo sighs. She wasn't trying to upset Raven. She just thinks that if anyone needs to stay behind, it ought to be her.

Then Clarke speaks up, voice halting, almost soft. "I know where you're coming from, Echo. I know you think self-sacrifice is some kind of shortcut to redemption. But it's not." She declares, in a stronger tone. "Trust me when I say it's not. And listen when we tell you that you're our family, now, and no way are we leaving you behind."

Echo blinks, stunned to tears. She doesn't actually let them roll down her cheeks, because that would be too much like visible emotion. But they're there, blurring her vision, bringing something of her worldview crashing around her shoulders.

 _Rise above it_.

She can't. She can't ignore that plea for her safety from the roommate she is so desperately attracted to, and from the woman who took Bellamy away from her but somehow became her close friend.

But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe being floored by positive emotions once in a while could be a change for the better.

While she's trying to collect herself, Raven reaches out to squeeze her hand. That's new, she notes. That's something they've never done before.

Then Raven starts talking again. "Anyway, as I was going to explain – we can probably find another way. I can probably code a programme to close it behind us."

"Probably?" Clarke asks, audibly worried.

Raven looks up at Echo, looks back over to Clarke. "Definitely." She declares, and Echo believes her.

…...

The problem with this last obstacle is that it has Raven working too hard. That's hardly surprising, Echo supposes, but it's unnecessary. They can't leave until the day after tomorrow anyway – that's when Clarke figures the whole population will be packed and ready to go. So it seems silly that Raven is so desperate to find a solution tonight.

"Leave that and get some rest." Echo suggests to her – or perhaps orders.

Raven snorts. "Not likely. I need to get this finished."

"Actually, you don't. Or at least not tonight. Go get some sleep."

"I won't be able to." Raven says, in a very small voice. "I know I won't sleep until I've fixed this because I'll be busy worrying that you're going to do something stupid."

Echo sighs. She really didn't mean to cause drama this morning. She wasn't necessarily even thinking of sacrificing herself, or anything so very terrible. She grew up in a society where marching herself headfirst into danger without a second thought was just a normal Tuesday. But now she's had a few years living with Skaikru, she supposes she can see why they found her immediate reaction a bit extreme and cause for concern.

"I won't do anything, Raven. I'll take care. You can stop worrying about me."

Raven shakes her head fiercely. "I don't think I can. Why did you even volunteer? Why would you just do that?"

Echo shrugs. "Because that's who I was raised to be, and I'm still learning how to be anyone else."

Raven nods, perhaps a little mollified.

Echo gathers her courage. "Why did you say what you said? About _letting me_ , as if you had a say in it?" She wants to say something about how possessive it sounded, but she's not quite that brave when it comes to human emotions.

"Because I don't want to lose you." Raven says, in a very small voice. "I lose everyone who I – everyone who's important to me. And I can't lose you, too. You're – you're _you_." She concludes.

Echo nearly cries, for the second time today. Because she knows Raven well enough to hear her words for what they are – a stumbling confession of feelings that stretch far beyond friendship. And Echo wants to be able to rejoice in that, perhaps even wants to have a try at a bit of kissing.

But she can't. _You're you_ , Raven said. And the problem is that's not true.

"I'm not." Echo whispers, tearful.

Raven looks up, sharp. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not. I'm not Echo. The person you think I am – the person you think you _love -_ " She forces the word out, heaves in a shaking breath. "That person doesn't exist."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Echo does start crying, now. If ever she imagined telling this story to someone who had chosen her, she never imagined telling it under circumstances quite like these.

"I'm not Echo." She chokes through her tears. "That's not my name. My parents named me Ash. Echo was my friend. We were kids together. I – I killed her, Raven. Nia told her to kill me, and she couldn't. And I – I killed her. And took her name. Took her _life_ in every way."

She stares at the floor for a long time when she's done, shaking with heaving sobs, wondering what happens next. She can't remember the last time she cried like this, but right now that seems like the least of her worries.

Right now, she's a bit preoccupied with the fact she's just ruined everything with Raven. But she tells herself this is for the best. Honesty and integrity are everything. She couldn't let Raven carry on falling in love with a lie.

"What should I call you?" Raven asks, in a very soft voice.

Echo looks up, shocked. That's not the response she was expecting. But she doesn't get to meet Raven's eye, because Raven is already stepping towards her and engulfing her in a hug.

"What should I call you?" Raven repeats, whispering against her neck. "I don't care what you've done. I care about who you _are._ And you're a good person, no matter what Nia made you do. I just want to know what name you're most comfortable with now."

Echo frowns against Raven's shoulder. She's never stopped to think about that before, but it's not a difficult question now it's been asked. She's been Echo for so long that she can't imagine calling herself Ash, for all that she still feels incredibly guilty about laying claim to Echo's identity.

"I guess I'm Echo." She says.

Raven nods, still hugging her tight. "Does it help if I point out that sometimes different people have the same name? Murphy wasn't the only John who came down from the Ark. There were dozens. He couldn't be more different from each one of them. He's his own person – just like you are."

Maybe that helps. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe what helps is that they're still embracing as they have this conversation. Echo doesn't know. Her head's a bit of a mess right now, all in all.

Then her thoughts grow even more scrambled, as Raven pulls her in for a kiss.

Echo responds, of course. Even at her most stunned she's no fool. She kisses Raven back with more determination than real pleasure. She knows she ought to be enjoying this, but she's too busy overthinking it. What if she messes this up? Why is Raven kissing her even after what she just confessed?

It is Raven who pulls away first.

"Sorry. Not a good moment I guess. I just – sorry."

Echo frowns. "Don't apologise. It's not the moment I'd have chosen but – yeah."

They hover there, awkward, looking at each other. Echo is struck by the sudden thought that she might find this funny, were it not for the tension in the air. How hard can it really be for two close friends who are falling in love with each other to hook up?

That decides it. This is not some high-stakes battle, nor a mission of delicate strategy. It's frightening, sure, because she's not used to putting her heart out there like this. But Clarke's recent words come to mind – Raven cares about her too much to let this become awkward.

With that resolved, Echo leans forward, and gets started on kissing Raven all over again.

…...

Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling later that night is an interesting experience. For one thing, Raven's here too. Echo can't quite wrap her head around that – the idea that they've gone from best friends who occasionally stare at each other for too long to acknowledged lovers in a matter of just hours.

For another thing, Echo surprises herself by wanting to talk about her feelings. That's an urge she's been experiencing ever more often, since she moved into the workshop, and she's beginning to understand that it could be a healthy thing.

"Are we going to be OK?" She asks Raven. "This doesn't have to change anything, right?"

Raven laughs a little. "I hope it changes _some_ things. I hope it means you don't sleep in your own bed very often."

"I could agree to that." Echo concedes. "You know what I meant, though."

"Yeah. I do." Raven says, rather more soberly. "We're going to be fine. What is a good relationship other than best friends who get to have sex, too?"

"You're onto something there. That should have been my first clue that me and Bellamy weren't forever. We just weren't close. We never really talked until we broke up." Echo offers lightly. It's so much easier to talk about her experience of not being his first choice, now that she knows what it feels like to be truly chosen.

Raven takes a loud breath. "I think I was like that with Shaw. I'd been so lonely those six years in space, and even before that. There was a hot engineer who was interested in me, and I confused that for love. I was trying to use him to put right the mistakes I'd made with Wick but – that's not how it works."

"No." Echo agrees mildly.

There's a pause. Raven's skin is soft beneath Echo's fingertips. She's quite enjoying stroking her shoulder, but she doesn't feel much need to do anything more than that. The sex was great, but just lying here close and talking is great, too.

"You want to play cards for a bit?" Raven asks brightly. Of course she does – both of them are too competitive for their own good and seem to have developed a bit of an obsession with playing strategic games together.

Echo giggles. Trust Raven to suggest a naked game of cards the first night they get together. That's why their relationship is so beautiful, she decides – the way they intertwine fun companionship and meaningful emotional support is pretty incredible. They bring out the best in each other, whether that's by encouraging one another to take a break when it's needed, or challenging one another to face up to their feelings.

In short, she thinks she might know what a healthy relationship looks like now, for the first time in all her years of life.

…...

Rising above it comes more easily, now, Echo notes, on the morning of the move to Earth. Not through sheer force of practice, not because she is repressing her emotions. But because she's ready to stand tall and walk through life with rather more confidence.

She can't wait to get home. She thinks that a new beginning on an old planet could be just the thing. And a new beginning with Raven by her side sounds best of all. She doesn't _need_ Raven by her side to feel good about herself, because she's done some work on healing in the recent past every bit as much as Raven has. But it's more fun to have her around, giving life a new dimension.

"Are we ready to go?" Clarke asks the assortment of people in the workshop.

As usual, the group that has met here seems a little random. But Echo's not inclined to worry about that today. She simply nods, hears Indra make an agreeing noise, sees Madi nod in turn.

"We're ready when you are." Raven agrees easily.

With that, it's time to go. Everyone picks up their luggage and sets off in a long train towards the anomaly. It's quite an impressive sight, Echo thinks. This is very much a Clarke Griffin operation – thousands of people moving home in perfect order.

She approaches her side and says as much.

"Thanks, Echo. We couldn't have done it without you."

Echo's heard those words a few times in her life before. But for once, she genuinely hears them as the truth and not a kind hyperbole. She nods, gives Clarke a quick hug. And then she leaves Clarke's side to take her place at the back of the group. That's the plan – Bellamy and Clarke are to lead from the front, with Madi of course, while Echo and Raven bring up the rear. That suits Echo pretty well – she's become quite a fan of the no-one-left-behind style of leadership in recent times.

They arrive at Gabriel's old camp, and Raven disappears for a few moments to set the anomaly stone. She's figured out how to get it to close down after they pass through, because of course she has. Echo has to admit, she's pretty proud of her girlfriend in moments like this.

She stands back and watches everyone pass into the green mist. A few of them get distracted by hallucinations, and Echo nudges them back on course. She notices her own hallucination while she's doing so, but doesn't pay it much mind. It's just a poor imitation of Raven telling her that she loves her, which Echo doesn't find so exciting these days.

She doesn't find it exciting, because she's pretty certain she's going to hear that for real before too long.

Raven wanders back to her side as the queue starts to dwindle.

"All good?" Echo asks.

"Perfect. You ready?"

Echo nods, reaches out to clasp Raven's hand. That's how she wants to start her new life on Earth – hand in hand with the woman she loves.

The anomaly is still a mess of green mist, much as it ever was. But Raven has managed to close off some of the routes such that it no longer resembles a maze – just a bright tunnel, leading them home.

And then they arrive, stumbling through the exit of the anomaly and into the bunker. The procession doesn't stop there, though. The queue stretches through the door and out into the bunker, presumably heading towards the temple and the light beyond. Raven and Echo keep walking hand in hand, eager to be on the surface.

"You doing OK?" Echo asks. She's been here recently, after all, but Raven has not been here since the Earth burned.

"Yeah. Fine. It's a little strange but I'm more excited than anything." Raven explains, squeezing her hand.

"What are you looking forward to seeing? Where do you want to go?" Echo asks. Sure, there's a sensible plan for them to stick around and build a settlement here. But she wants to know whether Raven has any hopes for day trips or excursions they might take.

Raven frowns. "I don't know if _looking forward to it_ is quite right, but I'd like to go back to the site of Arkadia. Most of the rest of the hundred died there – or will die there – in Jasper's Praimfaya party. I'd like to say goodbye."

Echo nods, rubs her thumb over the back of Raven's hand.

"What about you?" Raven asks.

Echo thinks about it, long and hard. Is there anywhere she feels a strong need to say hello or goodbye to? She has no real desire to head to Azgeda territory and mourn her lost childhood. She briefly wonders whether she wants to see Mount Weather, to mark the moment she and Bellamy met in those cages. She didn't know it, then, but that changed her life forever – without it she would never have met him, obviously, but also Raven and Emori and Clarke and all the other people who are now so important to her. But she supposes there are probably Mountain Men living there, and anyway, sentiment for sentiment's sake has never been her favourite thing.

She wants to see Polis. That's what she decides. She wants to see the world beyond that door, here and now. The temple where Octavia cast her out – or will cast her out, setting her on the way to half a life with Bellamy half a universe away. The temple she left on horseback, amidst burning snow, to ride a dangerous road that would eventually lead to Raven.

"I want to see our new home." She tells Raven at last.

Raven grins. "Me, too." She reaches up to press a quick kiss to Echo's cheek.

That's when Echo decides it's time to try saying it. They're here, together, shuffling down a grey hallway at the back of a queue of people. It's hardly a moonlit stroll or a beautiful open meadow, but it's exactly the kind of moment her relationship with Raven is built on.

"I love you." She murmurs, eyes fixed on the floor.

She feels Raven's head jerk up in shock.

"I get it if you can't say it back. I know love isn't easy for either of us." Echo continues. "I just wanted you to know. I love you, and I'm excited to start a life with you here."

"Thank you. Me too." Raven squeezes her hand. It's not quite a confession, but Echo can hear the love in her words.

They keep walking. The queue before them moves inexorably forwards. They're nearly there, now – the hallway opens up into that big atrium that leads towards the sky.

Echo tries a new topic. "What do you want to -"

"I love you." Raven bites out, firm, effortful.

There's a pause. And then Raven starts laughing in hysterical relief. "I'm sorry, Echo. I'm so sorry. You're right, it's not easy for me to talk about it but – you deserve to hear it. You deserve to know how I feel."

Echo wonders if this is what it feels like to glow with happiness. She presses a quick kiss to Raven's lips, but then keeps walking.

"What did you want to ask?" Raven prompts.

Echo laughs. "It doesn't seem important now. Come on, let's just get outside."

They're right at the door, now. They climb the ladder, Echo sending Raven up in front of her in case she needs any support with her leg on the stairs. And then they're out of the bunker, in the temple. People are milling everywhere, chattering excitedly, crowding around the place.

Echo simply stands, hand in hand with Raven, and takes it all in. This is it. This is their new beginning, their chance to rise from the ashes of Praimfaya.

And as for Echo herself? She has the rest of her life ahead of her, and she will rise to every challenge the Earth can throw at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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